Cape Storm

“You should go lie down,” Cherise said. “Nothing you can do here, babe.”

She was right, but with Lewis flat on his back, the Wardens needed a leader, and by default I was it. I wiped my eyes, took a deep breath, and shook my head. I unwrapped the blanket and stood up.

Cherise took my arm, balancing me on my feet before stepping away and letting me go it on my own.

I found a knot of uniformed crew members outside in the theater lobby, whispering together. They fell silent when they spotted me—fear, or respect, I couldn’t tell and didn’t care. I suspected my blue eyes held something terrible, because none of them would look at me directly.

“What can we do, miss?”

“Body bags,” I said. “I assume you have some on board. I’ll also need some medical assistance, as we have some very traumatized people. Bring tranquilizers.”

They all exchanged startled glances. One of the female stewards nodded and stepped away to a phone. The response time for the medical staff was impressive, but then again, it wasn’t like they had lots to occupy them right now. I followed the gurneys, doctors, and nurses into the theater, and went to consult with the next most senior Warden in the room.

That was a Fire Warden named Brett Jones. Brett was a big man, solid; I’d heard he played professional football, once upon a time, but he’d taken retirement before it had left him too busted up. He nodded when I approached him. The Fire Warden contingent of our little war party had been kept out of danger so far, but I could see that the losses had affected him just as deeply as they had me.

“What went wrong, Jo?” he asked. He sat me down next to him, angling to face me as much as a man that big could in theater chairs. “Nobody can give me a decent explanation of what went on up there.”

“I’m not sure I can, either,” I said. “There’s something on the aetheric. I can’t see it, but I can feel it, and it can hurt us. That’s how it started. Then the storm itself—it was like it converted our power into something else. It changed,Brett. I’ve never seen anything like it.”

“I have,” said a childlike third voice, and we both looked up to see the Dji

We exchanged looks. “Uh, if you don’t mind?” Brett said. He knew what Ve

Ve

“Forget it, Ven. Tell us.”

The frown smoothed out into a bland mask. “You shouldn’t order me, you know.”

I felt a savage bite of anger. “It’s been a bad day. And I’m not too concerned about your fragile Dji

From the disbelieving stare Brett was giving me, I could tell he couldn’t quite grasp that I was sassing a supernatural time bomb of power this way, but I really didn’t care. Ve

She let it pass. “A long time ago, there was a thing that happened. It doesn’t matter what it was, but it left a kind of scar between the highest plane of our existence and another place. A bad place.”

“The place where Demons dwell,” I said. “Right?”

“Oh no,” she replied. “Much worse than that. The Demons love aetheric energy, but really all they want is to eat their fill and go back where they belong. No, this is a place the Demons fear. We don’t know what lives there, but it came through, once.”

“Came through,” Brett repeated. “What happened when it did?”

“The universe died,” Ve

I stared at her, speechless. So did Brett. So did everyone else within earshot of this bizarre conversation.

She tilted her small head sideways. “What?”

“Um—even youcan’t be that old, Ve

“I’m not. I read about it.”

“Where? At the Dji

“Of course not.” She kicked her feet, just like a regular kid at the movies. “In the stars. In the dirt. In the water. It’s all around us. You can’t see it?” She answered her own question with a shake of her head. “Of course you can’t. Even most of the Dji

“I’m—not sure how this is going to help us,” Brett said.

I was. “You’re saying that what’s on the aetheric, what took over the storm, it’s what came through last time?”

“No. I’m saying that it startedthis way, before. With the storm, and the power, and the ghosts.”

“Ghosts.” It was my turn to repeat her words. “On the aetheric.”

“You can’t see them, can you?”

“What kind of ghosts?”

“I can’t see them either,” Ve

“Do they like the Dji

“They don’t notice us, really. At least, not so far.”

This was interesting, but it wasn’t getting us where I needed to be. “Ve

“He was,” she said, and her eyes went unfocused and distant. “He opened the door, but he’s not interested in what’s coming through. Chaos is what he wants. It’s what he’s getting.” She snapped back to focus with such sudde

“What about the storm?”

“You can’t hurt it. You can only survive it.”

Kind of like this day. “Ve

She considered the question for a long, silent moment. “No,” she said. “I could hurt him, but he could hurt me just as much. His power cancels mine in many ways, and I think he might just be worse than I am.”

“You mean he could kill you.”

“No, he probably couldn’t. But I wouldn’t like what was left of me, in the end, if I won.” She said it without much emphasis—just a calm assessment of her chances, nothing to be afraid of. “It’s better if you do it, anyway. Humans. You don’t have the same vulnerabilities that we do.”

It was veryodd to hear a Dji

Of course, she ruined it by adding, “And you’re much more easily replaced.”

Lovely. “Does hehave any vulnerabilities?”

“Of course. He can still die,” she said. “He can still feel pain. Part of him is still human. A small part, but it remains, and it feels things the way humans do. The way you do.”

I felt the ship’s speed lurch, accelerating. Some of the ship’s staff looked startled.

That wasn’t standard procedure, obviously.

“I sped us up,” Ve

Maybe, but now I could feel the thudding impacts of waves through the ship, and the very slight rolling had increased to a definite wallow. A ship this large dampened the usual motion of the sea, but in waves this high, at u

I glanced at Brett, who was already looking distinctly uncomfortable. “Better get the ship’s stores to break out the giant economy-size Dramamine.”

He nodded. “Anything else?”

“Yeah. Bad Bob was a Weather Warden, when he still had just his regular set of powers. Fire may be our best bet to overcome him—it’s his biggest weakness. You get your guys ready. I want original ideas, something he can’t anticipate or plan for.” I chewed my lip for a second. “And whatever your plans are—don’t tell me about them. I’d rather you keep it in your team.”

Whatever he thought of that, Brett nodded and left me. I sat, watching the dead Wardens being loaded into body bags, then trundled away on gurneys.