Thin Air

The white van, for instance. It didn’t seem inclined to vanish on my say-so, however. It kept a steady three-car distance from me, not really hiding, but not really making itself known, either. Too far back for me to catch sight of the driver.

“Ashan has my memories.”

“No. He…” Ve

“But Ashan…he’s not a Dji

“No,” she said. “Not anymore.” For a brief second Ve

“Me?” I asked, startled.

“Humans. Maybe not as much as she loves us, because she understands us a little better. But she’s fond of you, too, in a way.” She shrugged. “He blames you. You made her understand that humans weren’t intending to hurt her.”

“I did.”

“Yes. You.”

“And by Mother, you mean…”

“Earth,” she said. “Mother Earth, of course.”

I decided to stick to driving. “Where am I going?” I asked. “If we’re heading for Ashan?”

“I have him safe.” Ve

“Was that a joke?”

Ve

“What do we do when we get there?” I asked. “I’m not killing anybody, Ve

“I wouldn’t let you,” she said. “Although if you knew Ashan, you’d probably want to… What do you want me to do about the man following us?”

“You noticed.” She gave a little snort of agreement. I supposed it wasn’t exactly beyond her capabilities. “Do you know who it is?”

“Yes,” she said. I waited. She waited right back.

I gave her a hard look. Which was just a little bit hilarious, admittedly; I was giving her a hard look? As far as I could tell, Ve

“I don’t have to,” she said. “You’ll have to stop soon. When you do, you’ll find out.”

She seemed smug about it. I gave her another completely ineffective glare, and checked my gas gauge. Still nearly full. Why in the world would I have to stop…?

The back left tire blew out with a jolt and a sound like a brick slapping the undercarriage of the car, and I cursed, fought the wheel, and limped the Camaro over to the shoulder of the road. The uneven thump thump thump made it clear that we weren’t going to do any quick getaways.

“Fix it,” I said to Ve

“You have a spare tire,” she said. “I’ll wait here.”

I cursed under my breath, opened the door, popped the trunk, and unloaded the jack, spare tire, and other various roadside disaster tools. I was evidently no stranger to mechanical work, but I wasn’t in the mood, dammit. I had the lug nuts loosened in record time, but as I was jacking up the car with vicious jerks of the handle, I saw a sparkle of glass behind us, and the white van glided over the hill…slowing down.

Shit.

“Hey, Ve

She rolled up the window.

“Perfect.” I sighed. “Just perfect.” I went back to cranking the jack, grimly focused on the job at hand but keeping at least half of my attention-the paranoid half-on the van as it crawled and crunched its way slowly toward me. The brakes squealed slightly as it stopped.

I couldn’t see a damn thing through the tinted windows, and I was suddenly very glad of the tire iron in my hand.

And then the doors on both sides of the van opened at once, and people got out. The woman was young, toned, and well coiffed. She had a microphone. Behind her, in a flying wedge, came a fat guy with a camera and a ski

“You’ve got to be kidding me,” I said, and stared, paralyzed, while they moved purposefully in my direction. “Holy crap.”

“Joa

My paralysis snapped, replaced by a quivering all-over tremor. She knew my name.

“I don’t care who you’re with,” I interrupted, and started pumping the jack again. The tire crept upward, cleared the asphalt, and I repurposed the jack to start removing the lugs. “Get lost.”

“Ma’am, do you have any comment about what happened back there on the beach?”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” I said. “And I don’t know any Joa

“I interviewed your sister a few weeks ago. She gave us a photo,” Sylvia Simons interrupted, and held out a picture of me and Sarah, which had been removed from its frame. We looked happy and stupid. I still felt stupid, but I certainly wasn’t very happy. “She told us that you’re a member of an organization called the Wardens. Can you tell me something about that?”

“No,” I said. Four lug nuts off. I kept moving, careless of the grease and grime on my hands or what was getting on my clothes.

“My understanding is that you have some kind of responsibility for protecting the general public from natural disasters,” Simons continued. Lug nut five came off, then six, and I slid the tire free with a screech of metal and let it thump down on the road between us. I wiped sweat from my forehead and ignored her as she leaned closer. “She claimed it was magic. Care to tell us exactly what that means? We’ll get the information some other way if you don’t, but this is your chance to tell your side of the story…”

Crap. I put the other tire on and began replacing lug nuts. “I don’t have a side,” I said, “and there isn’t any story. Leave me alone.”

I could tell they weren’t going to. They’d been digging, and struck gold. Sarah had dropped the dime and taken the money after ensuring that the white van and the reporters knew to keep on my trail. And maybe she’d called somebody else, too. Somebody who’d dispatched a killer to silence me before I could talk. That way she’d have the money from the reporters free and clear, and no Wardens after her.

“Tell you what,” I said, spi

Simons made a surprised face, and looked at the camera as if she wanted to be sure it caught her amazement. “Are you threatening us, Ms. Baldwin?”

“Nope.” I finished finger-tightening the nuts, and released the jack to let the car settle back on four tires. I began applying the tire iron to finish the job of making the wheel road ready. “But things do happen.”

And right then, things did happen. The camera guy said, “What the…?” and a whisper of smoke suddenly oozed out of three or four places in his equipment. I heard a cooking sound from inside the electronics.

Nice. I sure did enjoy some things about being a Fire Warden.

“What’s wrong?” Simons asked, and moved toward him. Together, with the sound guy craning in for a look, they reviewed the damage. Which, I could have told them, was catastrophic. Yay, me.

I shoved the old flat tire and all the equipment in the trunk, slammed it, and said, “I think the phrase I’m searching for here is ‘no comment.’”