Gale Force

The clerk, who looked pissed now rather than shattered, was muttering under her breath as she

checked each dress for damage. I gave Cherise the high call-me sign, and she flashed me a grin

and mouthed, You owe me lunch, bitch!

Cherise was the fastest rebounding human I'd ever seen. And that was only part of the reason I

loved her like a sister.

Considering my actual bitchy, whiny, double-crossy, drug-addicted sister . . . better than my

sister.

Lewis had a Hummer. I hated Hummers, but I had to admit, it suited him-and he was probably

one of the few Hummer drivers who actually used it as God and Jeep intended, to be driven over

hard terrain. It looked it, too-muddy, dented, cheerfully well used.

I came to a halt, staring up at the passenger door. ''I swear,'' I said, ''if I split these jeans

climbing into your damn truck-''

''Need a boost?'' Lewis asked from behind me. And I had a terrifically tactile premonition of his

big hands going around my waist and lifting me up. . . .

Bad for my discipline.

''As if,'' I said, and, with a mighty effort, levered myself up to the step and into the cab of the

truck. It was like an eighteen-wheeler, only with better upholstery. As I got myself strapped in,

Lewis swung in on the opposite side with the ease of long practice, and longer legs. I sniffed.

The truck smelled like mud, leaves, wood smoke, and mildew. ''You ever get this thing

detailed?''

''What would be the point?'' Lewis put it in gear, and the tank began to roll. He drove slowly,

negotiating around stopped cars and people still standing in the middle of the street. Normal life

was starting to reassert itself. As we got farther from the dress shop, I saw that the damage

appeared limited to broken windows and overturned shelves in the stores. It looked like New

Orleans after a really rocky night of Mardi Gras. ''Okay,'' Lewis said, drawing my attention,

''so give me the bullet points.''

I ticked them off, a finger at a time. ''One, I was minding my own damn business, trying on

wedding dresses when it hit. Two, I worked with Luis Rocha to try to figure out what was

causing it and lessen the damage. Three-'' Number three was my middle finger,

unaccompanied by the other two.

''Classy,'' Lewis said. ''I'm sure the Wardens Council would be impressed with the summary.''

I repeated the gesture for the missing Wardens Council. Because I didn't much like most of

them, anyway.

''When you and Rocha went up on the aetheric, what happened?''

I described it for him-the red boil of forces out of control; Rocha diving down toward the

source; me following; the ice black shard of-something-driven into the skin of the planet.

''You touched it,'' Lewis said, ''and it knocked you away.''

''Like it was Sammy Sosa and I was the baseball.''

''Nice sports reference. You do that because I'm a guy?''

''No, I do it because I like baseball. Back to the subject. I couldn't hold on to it, and if I

couldn't-'' The only Warden walking around who was stronger than me was currently driving

the Hummer. ''You want to give it a shot?''

''I'd like to see it,'' he said. We came to a stoplight; he turned right, found a deserted parking

lot, and parked. ''Show me.''

I took his hand. It wasn't strictly necessary, but it made me feel better. We launched up together,

out of our bodies and into the aetheric, and I was as always interested to see that Lewis didn't

really look all that different on the astral planes than he did back home. Most people tended to

reflect the person they wanted to be-prettier, fancier, stronger, taller, ski

Paul manifested as a kind of King Arthur– era knight, although I was pretty sure he didn't know

that.

I had no idea how I looked up top. Did I want to ask? Yeah. But it just Wasn't Done. Warden

protocol.

The aetheric was abuzz with Warden activity. Lewis and I stayed out of it, floating high and

looking down on the teeming, busy swirl of light that was the city of Fort Lauderdale. I pointed

to a cluster of Warden activity, and tugged on his hand. Down we went, hurtling fast, flashing

past startled colleagues I didn't even vaguely recognize.

We headed down into the disturbance, which, though still roiling, was contained in a tight, glassy

shell of power. It looked fragile-the shell, not the disturbance.

Lewis touched the surface, and it took on a milky swirl; then his hand passed through it. He went

inside, pulling me after, and when I looked back I saw the bubble sealing itself behind us.

Pressure closed in on me, real and intense, and I was glad I didn't have blood vessels to rupture,

because there would definitely be rupturing going on, followed by copious hemorrhaging.

Down we went, sliding through what felt like molten glass, and then I saw the black

otherworldly glitter below and pulled on Lewis's hand to let him know. He nodded, and we

touched down on something that wasn't ground, wasn't surface, wasn't anything really except a

shadow of reality.

And there it was: the black thorn of glass, driven deep.

Lewis mimed that he was going to grab it. I shook my head. He mimed again. I shook my head

again.

Fat lot of good that did. He grabbed it anyway.

Lewis held on for longer than I had-long enough that I began to think he was actually going to

manage to yank the damn thing out-but then was thrown back, just as I'd been. Well, more

violently. And he hit and bounced and drifted, seemingly unaware of anything until I grabbed on

and began hauling him upward, away from that . . . thing. I couldn't explain why, but it gave me

the serious creeps. It glittered. It looked deadly sharp, no matter what angle you looked at it;

there was a sense of purpose to it that made my skin crawl.

It meant to be there. And it meant to defend itself.

Lewis came awake again, thrashing, and broke free of my hold. I fumbled for him, but he was

already swimming away from me, heading back down.

Crap. This wasn't going well.

I couldn't yell on the aetheric, but I damn well felt like shouting. I pushed after him, feeling sick

from the pressure, and grabbed hold of his ankle. He shook free of my grip and kept going,

arriving back in front of the black shard. He didn't touch it this time; he just drifted slowly

around it, taking in every detail.

And then he went up, into another aetheric plane higher than this one. I tried to follow, but I

slammed into a glass ceiling that no amount of trying would get me past. I was anchored in the

real world, and that line stretched only so far.

I had no idea how Lewis was able to do it, but then that was why he was at the top of the Warden

food chain, and I wasn't.

I waited impatiently, and in a matter of minutes he was back, falling back down. He grabbed my

hand and we plunged through the aetheric levels, back down to the real world . . . into our

bodies.

I coughed, gasped, and felt my head pound in time with my rapid heartbeat. I was covered in

sticky, cold sweat. In fact, I felt downright sick.

So did Lewis, clearly. He looked just as bad as I felt, if not worse, and when I touched him, his

skin was ice-cold.

Worse, his hands looked . . . burned, flushed bright red on the palms. He wiped them on his jeans

in a convulsive movement, as if there were something horrible on them that he wanted to get off,

but it was clear from the way he was shaking that it went deeper than surface slime.

''Christ,'' he said, and leaned his head back against the whiplash rest. ''What the hell?''