Total Eclipse

The answer drowned in static, and then myher?voice came back strong, again. have to stay away, Mom, do you understand?

There was a particularly violent shriek of feedback, and the co

The Dji

Yes. Can you reach her? Is she okay?

I cant see her. Like the Fire Oracle, I think shes hidden herself. Ill try to get through.

Hurry, I said, and chewed my lip nervously. I think she could be in trouble.

Were all in trouble, David said, which wasnt the most inspirational speech hed ever delivered. The radio shut down. The Dji

I turned around to look in the backseat. Cherise was asleep, cuddled up with Tommy in a camouflage-patterned sleeping bag. Wed stopped in at a sports outfitter in Oklahoma CityMuzak still playing over the speakers, although shoppers were noticeably rattled and tense, and buying survival gear instead of lawn gamesand stocked up on things like insulating blankets, sturdy boots and clothes, portable shelters, water and survival foods. Next best thing to Army surplus. And a lot more expensive, since it catered to the weekend wa

It had felt deeply surreal to be signing a credit card slip while the world was in the throes of chaos, but I supposed one way or another, Id be paying off my debts.

Cherise looked tired and pale, and from the way she was whimpering in her sleep, she had bad dreams. I reached back and smoothed her hair until the whimpering went away. Baby Tommy seemed to have adapted much more easily; hed taken to Cherise quickly, and he was a happy kid, smiling and burbling most of the time. From the way he filled his diapers, he was healthy enough. I would have felt better having him checked out by an honest-to-goodness Earth Warden or, at the very least, a pediatrician, but for now, we were all doing okay. Cherise was out of the braces. Her legs had healed straight, and although she continued to be weak and tired, she was recovering remarkably well from having just about died. The jury was still out on how she was going to deal with Kevins death, long term.

If we had any long term, of course.

Up ahead, traffic was snarled, again. As we got into more civilized areas, it was perversely harder to get around these days, what with people frantically trying to get to their survivalist mountain hideouts, or to their relatives, or just to the store to stock up on emergency batteries. We were coming into Amarillonot exactly a major metropolitan area, but busier than the deserted Texas Panhandle highway had been. The air was dry and stable overhead, and the landscape was mostly flat and scrubby, with tough vegetation. Very different from the trees where wed left Kevin.

I hoped I wouldnt end up dying somewhere without trees. I liked trees.

Even the Dji

This is restful, I said, to nobody in particular. The Dji

You all need rest, he said. Ill find you a place to stay for a few hours, and someplace to eat.

That sounded heavenly. Not that I couldnt sleep in the car and eat bagged food, but stretching out on real sheets was better than sex right now. The mere thought of fresh food made me salivate.

We should probably push on, I said, being the brave little toaster. Its only about another ten hours to Sedona, and thats not counting the bat out of hell multiplier.

Youd get there exhausted, he said. Its been hard, and its going to get worse, I think. You need to rest while you can. He spoke with authority, and I remembered that in his brief human life hed been a soldier. Hed been used to exhaustion, to snatching what little rest and relief he could in between fighting for his life.

I gave in. Truthfully, it had been a token protest anyway, and Imaras inexplicable warning had made me worried. My daughter, like David, had a much wider view of things than I ever could. What if we were making things worse instead of better? What if we were actually forcing the battle instead of preventing it?

I couldnt think straight anymore. Id been holding back emotions for a while now, but theres one thing about emotions: they never really go away if theyre strong. You can bury them, but like a vampire they keep lurching back up. I knew that I was still numb about the loss of Kevin, but it was going to come out, and probably soon. Id rather suffer through that in private, lying in a bed and hugging a pillow. It wouldnt help Cherise to see me lose it.

Id put him in the ground myself. Id felt the unmistakable absence in him, the void where his life had been.

No, I didnt want to remember how it had felt to hold his empty shell, or how hed looked so pale, bound up in that cheap motel sheetbut the image wouldnt go away.

With a shocking intensity, that mental picture suddenly shifted, and it was Lewiss face pale and still, it was Lewis lying in my arms as I abandoned him to the dirtalone, cold, unmarked. I almost gasped out loud with the emotion that brought rolling through me, and rested my burning forehead against the glass as I squeezed my eyes shut. No. No, thats not going to happen.

David and I had our powers back. Cherise had survived. Wed saved some lives along the way. We were wi