Thin Air

“You don’t have to stay with me,” he said. “It’s true that once Dji

I put my head down on his chest. He might not have been human, but his body felt that way. His heart thumped gently under my hand, and I felt the elastic movement of his lungs. His arms went around me and cradled me there.

“Ve

“Don’t worry about me.”

“I do. I will. Does it?”

I felt his sigh stir the damp hair around my forehead. “I think the more co

“But the Old Ones won’t. Like Ve

“Not your problem,” he said in a gentle but subject-is-closed kind of way. “Life over on the Dji

I laughed, then fell silent. I never wanted to move. Never wanted to arrive. I wanted this breathlessly perfect time to simply freeze.

But I heard the engines change pitch, and David’s hand stroked gently down my spine. “We’re descending,” he said.

“If you mean we’re going down, I could make some jokes.”

“Stop.” There was a bright edge of laughter in the word, though. I’d made a Dji

“This isn’t serious? Because I kind of thought-”

“Stop,” he said again, this time more soberly. “You need to know what’s going to happen when we land.”

I acknowledged that with a single nod, not raising my head.

“We’ll be met by another Dji

I closed my eyes and reached for that strange vibration I’d felt when I’d been in Kevin’s mind. It was still there, and getting stronger. “No, I don’t think so. I think she’s there, or she’s close. David-what the hell is in Seacasket?”

And he told me about the Fire Oracle. Like Imara, in Sedona, it was a higher order of Dji

By the time he was finished, he’d silently urged me to sit up, and he’d handed me my clothes. They felt wrong, awkward against my skin. It occurred to me, as I fastened the last button on my shirt, that dressing must be a lot faster as a Dji

“You expecting trouble with the Oracle?” I asked.

“No.”

“Well, you sent for Rahel as backup…”

“About that.” He took in a breath and let it out slowly. “I’m not going with you.”

That set up a cold, liquid sensation in my stomach. “You’re…what?”

“There’s something I have to do,” he said. “It’s important. I’ll join you when I can. Rahel won’t abandon you.”

“Ve

Always.

“Jo.” He squeezed my hand. “Trust me.”

Couldn’t argue with that, although I wanted to.

The pilot’s cheerful voice came on to tell us to put our tray tables and flight attendants in the upright position, and the opal shield faded around us. The bed became seats, and we were back to reality. It hadn’t been a dream. My whole body was relaxed, languorous with warmth, deliciously sore.

“I love you,” David said. He said it quietly, without any drama, as if it were part of normal conversation. Which maybe it was, for us. Or could be. “No matter how this goes, that doesn’t change.”

I closed my eyes as the plane began a terrifying, jerky descent toward New Jersey.

He stayed with me until we touched down on the tarmac, but by the time I opened my eyes again, my hand was empty of his, and David’s seat was vacant.

He was gone. We were on our own.

The Demon was in Seacasket. Somewhere. I could feel that noise in my head, like subtle static on a cha

The process of shuttling my little raiding party from planeside to Seacasket wasn’t short, but it was fairly efficient; the Wardens, it seemed, excelled in logistics. That meant a passenger van, complete with communications gear and a hotline that Lewis immediately used to chat with somebody in an office. He hadn’t commented on David’s disappearance, which seemed odd to me until I realized that he probably knew where David had gone, and why.

Or maybe he was just distracted by Rahel, who’d shown up in the van without preamble or introduction, scaring the holy crap out of at least some of the Wardens, including Paul, who’d nearly jumped out of his seat. “Post-traumatic fucking stress,” he’d growled at me, and thumped down hard. “Last time a Dji

Rahel raised one sharp eyebrow, elegant and amused. “I can’t imagine why,” she said coolly. She was in neon orange today, a beautifully tailored pantsuit with a tangerine sheer top layered over neon yellow. Matching fingernails that looked sharp enough to slice paper. She’d jazzed up her multitude of black braids with tiny gold bells and glowing orange beads, and she gave off a very faint chime when she moved. “You’ve treated the Dji

“Hey. This particular Dji

They exchanged the kind of look reserved for respected adversaries, and went to their separate corners, metaphorically. In actuality, the van wasn’t that big.

“I should help the driver,” Rahel said, and moved up a row to lean over to touch him on the shoulder. She didn’t speak, though, that I could see. I wondered what kind of “help” she was providing, and decided that maybe sometimes it was just better not to ask.

“It’s the town,” Lewis said, following my gaze. “I’ve tried to send Wardens here for more than six months. They never make it within twenty miles before they turn around.”

“That bad?” I asked.

“No. They just forget where they’re going. It’s part of the protections the Dji

The closer we got, the stranger the weather seemed. It had been cold and windy in Newark, with that chilly, damp edge that could only mean snow on the way. But as we moved toward Seacasket, everything went quiet, smooth as glass. Like weather simply didn’t exist, or was artificially flattened out to some even balance.

I put my hand up against the van’s window. Cool, but not frigid outside. The clouds had swirled away, and the sunshine seemed brighter than it should. The fall colors were gorgeous, and the leaves fluttered in a very slight, decorative breeze.

We passed a sign that a

Rahel continued to sit quietly, communing with the van driver, as we drove through town. I stared out at what looked like a normal place, normal buildings, normal people. It looked too normal, in fact, a Norman Rockwell perfection that existed all too rarely in reality. Kids in this town would be happy and well-adjusted, with just enough spice of harmless rebellion for flavor. Adults would be content and well-grounded, going about their productive and busy lives. Crime would be low. Lawns would be pere