Thin Air

“Too close to humans,” I said, remembering what Ve

“No,” he said. “And change isn’t destruction. It’s just change. Maybe we’re adapting into two species-the Old Ones as pure Dji

My heart rate picked up a few dozen beats per minute. The debate was slowing down, Lewis was making notes on a big wipe-board with names and procedures, and already there was a sense of purpose in the room. A sense, strangely, of excitement.

It was day one, and we were going to change.

And change wasn’t a bad thing.

“Well,” I said, “when this is over, you’re mine, David. I expect to have your full, undivided attention for at least twenty-four hours. Maybe longer.”

He kissed my hand. There went the heart rate, edging up again.

“You have it,” he said, “for the rest of your life. When this is over, we can go for a drive. I understand the seats recline in the Mustang.”

I closed my eyes and soaked that in, and then I stood up.

I addressed the entire room. “Let’s go save the world.”

Because from this day forward, that was officially our job.

SOUND TRACK

Once again, music saves my sanity. Enjoy this track list on your iPod…I sure did!

“Ain’t No Sunshine”-Bill Withers

“Ballroom Blitz”-Sweet

“The Bitter End”-Placebo

“Black Horse and the Cherry Tree”-K. T. Tunstall

“Blockbuster”-Sweet

“Bother”-Stone Sour

“Boulevard of Broken Dreams”-Green Day

“Bridge to Better Days”-Joe Bonamassa

“Calling Card”-Rory Gallagher

“Coming Undone”-Korn

“Crazy”-Gnarls Barkley

“Cry”-James Blunt

“Dani California”-Red Hot Chili Peppers

“The Denial Twist”-The White Stripes

“Face Down”-Red Jumpsuit Apparatus

“Give Me Your Love”-Reef

“God Is a Bullet”-Concrete Blonde

“Going to My Hometown”-Rory Gallagher

“Gone Daddy Gone”-Gnarls Barkley

“I’m Still Awake”-Hybrid

“Inertia Creeps”-Massive Attack

“The Jean Genie”-David Bowie

“Je

“Judith”-A Perfect Circle

“Just Another Day”-Oingo Boingo

“Killing in the Name”-Rage Against the Machine

“Ladyfingers”-Luscious Jackson

“Last Resort”-Papa Roach

“Look After You”-The Fray

“Maybe Tomorrow”-Stereophonics

“Original Fire”-Audioslave

“Private Idaho”-The B-52s

“Pump It Up”-Elvis Costello

“Punish Me with Kisses”-Bird York

“Rock Lobster”-The B-52s

“Steady as She Goes”-The Raconteurs

“Stuck in the Middle with You”-Stealers Wheel

“Take a Number”-Stone Sour

“Tear You Apart”-She Wants Revenge

“Temperature”-Sean Paul

“Through Glass”-Stone Sour

“…To Be Loved”-Papa Roach

“Tubthumping”-Chumbawamba

“Venus”-Bananarama

“Voodoo Light”-Jim Suhler and Monkey Beat

“We Used To be Friends”-The Dandy Warhols

“When I’m Gone”-3 Doors Down

“Wichita Lineman”-Gle

“Worry About You”-Ivy

HIGHLY RECOMMENDED: Joe Bonamassa’s new album, You amp; Me!

Want to make track list suggestions? Send them to [email protected] /* */!

Read on for a sneak peek at the next book in Rachel Caine’s exciting

Weather Warden series!

Available from Roc in August 2008

“Honey!” I yelled. “Get the phone, would you?” Because it was ringing off the hook, and I was a little busy trying to put out a fire in Florida, right next to Alligator Alley, that had been burning for three days.

Never off duty, that was me. Weather Warden by first choice-if a world-ending storm blew up without notice, I was the go-to girl. Second choice: Fire Warden, which was what was occupying me at the moment. Acting as an Earth Warden-something that I could do, but didn’t want to do-was a distant, cautious, still-weird third.

I was standing on the balcony of my apartment building, staring at the smudge of smoke on the horizon. It didn’t look like I was doing much of anything, and truthfully, I probably could have gone inside, picked up the ringing phone, talked to whatever cold-caller was on the other end…but I was feeling frustrated, and I needed to do something positive. So I was concentrating on rendering the burnable underbrush less burnable, at the cellular level-changes that would have to be undone later, for safety, but made dandy firebreaks in the meantime.

Of course, I was interfering with Fire Wardens and Weather Wardens who were already doing their assigned jobs. Well, that was why I was the boss, right? That was what bosses did. Interfere. (My bosses always had, anyway. Although, come to think of it, I hadn’t liked it much.)

The glass door behind me rumbled back on its track, and a man’s hand dangled the phone over my shoulder. I turned, eyebrows raised in silent question, and David just shrugged his own shoulders in response.

David was always lovely to look at, but he was especially pleasing at sunset, when the red sky picked up bronze tints in his skin and highlighted the supernatural sparks in his eyes. Which were currently the color of old pe

He waggled the phone again, significantly. I sighed and took it. “Hello?”

I wasn’t prepared for the volume that erupted out of the phone. “Joa

The voice on the other end was Paul Giancarlo, and the tone was a Jersey bellow, barely contained by the phone’s speaker. I held the phone farther from my ear. “Oh, hi, Paul,” I said. “So, how’s the fire going?”

“The fire is going fine, and you need to quit screwing around. You are not on duty. I have coverage on the damn fire, and you need to stop-”

“Helping you? Because three days is kind of a long-”

“Kid. Stop already. We’re on top of it!”

“Let me talk to Lewis.” Lewis being the only guy in the entire Wardens organization who had the right to tell me what to do, a fact that had made me a little smug and-yes, I could admit it-a little insufferable.

“Lewis doesn’t want to talk to you. Lewis wants me to tell you to butt out. Get it? You’re on vacation. Vacate.”

He hung up on me. I stared at the phone, surprised and a little wounded. David took it from my fingers, put it on the patio table behind me, and said, “I assume he told you your assistance isn’t required. No, actually I don’t assume that. I overheard.”

“Eavesdropper.”

“People three doors down heard it,” he said. “Not a great feat of supernatural detection.”

Busted. I glared at him for a second, but honestly, I couldn’t stay angry at David. Especially when he gave me that look.

But I glanced toward the fire again, anyway, and I heard him sigh. “Jo. Let go. I know how hard it is for you, but you need to let other people handle their jobs.”

“Three days!” I said, pointing an accusing finger toward the smoke. “Come on, you don’t think they could have been a little more aggressive about it?”

“You know as well as I do that sometimes managing a fire is more important than putting it out,” he said, and stepped between me and my view of the conflagration. Not that he wasn’t, you know, burning hot. Because he definitely was, and I felt myself inevitably getting distracted.