Cape Storm

Lewis was standing just where I’d left him, at the railing, and his glow was Dji

Not even Lewis.

We were floating on the storm in our own little self-contained pocket universe of calm sea and air.

I tried to unlock the watertight door, but it seemed stuck. I sent a snap of Earth power from my fingertips out through the metal, realigning the surfaces, and when I turned the handle again, the door slid smoothly open.

“Jo!” Cher was right behind me. Her eyes were huge and frightened. “What’s happening?”

“I’ll find out,” I said, with utter calm. I felt alive inside, manic with glee, but I didn’t want her to see that. “Wait inside.”

“But—”

I slammed the door between us and hit it with the heel of my hand, hard enough to make a hollow boom.“Lock it!”

I heard the heavy clash of metal engaging, and then I turned toward Lewis, standing like a misplaced figure-head at the rail.

He opened his eyes. I could see the energy spilling out of him, a raw wound that split him open to the core.

He was bleeding on the aetheric. Bleeding himself to death.

“How?” I asked, and leaned on the railing. He didn’t answer me. Couldn’t, perhaps. His nose was bleeding, and his eyes were flushed red under the stress of what he was doing. Fifteen Dji

Not wi

Not hardly.

“You’ll kill yourself,” I commented. “For God’s sake, Lewis, what does it matter? What does any of it matter? Just let go. The ship will get torn apart. People will drown. Life will go on, for a while, until it doesn’t.” I shrugged. “Just let go. It’s that easy.”

Lewis let out a gasping sob. His knees buckled, but he held fast to the railing.

He held the bubble of force against the storm.

“You aren’t doing this alone,” I said. “But you didn’t have time to get the other Wardens to help. And even if you did, they’re not capable of this kind of power. Not alone—” I paused, because I finally worked it out. “But you’re not alone, are you?”

Lewis’s breath was coming in short, desperate gasps now. Nobody could sustain this, not even the most powerful Warden in the world.

Not even one with a direct co

Which was what Lewis had. He’d always been close to our temperamental Mother Earth, but this was beyond that, way beyond. The power that poured through him to fill this shell of force was like a geyser, tapping directly into the heart of the planet herself.

Only the co

He’d claimed David. He’d put David in a bottle and made him a slave, and he was using him to open this portal directly into the lifeblood of Earth, to save the ship.

It would burn Lewis out before David, but not much before.

They’d both die.

Some part of me was screaming inside, begging me to stop it. But that was the very last tiny foothold of the old Joa

I closed my eyes and sighed. All I had to do was . . . wait.

I felt a warning tingle in the still, calm air, and as I looked up, I saw a tornado striking down at us from the clouds that writhed overhead. Lightning snaked around it, living barbed wire, and it hit the curved surface of Lewis’s protective bubble around the Grand Paradiseand began to probe for weaknesses.

Then it bombed us.

I saw the metal shape hurtling down at us through the oddly clear eye of the tornado, that empty fu

No. That was a ship.A whole, intact ship.A small fishing vessel. The black-painted bottom was heavy with barnacles, and as lightning flared brighter I saw the name on her rusty bow— Abigail.

There were living men on board. I could see their terrified faces at the railing as the ship dropped toward us in free fall, her weight turning majestically in the air and driving her nose down like the tip of a spear.

“No,” Lewis moaned, but he didn’t drop the shield. He couldn’t.

The Abigailhit his protective bubble and exploded into shrapnel, scrap, and bodies. I flinched—instinct, not sympathy. The ship’s fuel tanks burst, slopping marine diesel in a wave across the invisible wall.

Lightning ignited it, and flames sheeted over us in a semicircle. It didn’t last long. Nothing to burn once the diesel had flamed out.

The wreckage of the Abigailwas gone in even less time, along with her crew. Even if there’d been a chance of saving them—which, after the fury of that crash, I doubted—there was no way to reach them without dropping our own protective shield.

Bad Bob really was bringing his A game.

The tornado’s sloppy mouth slithered over Lewis’s shield for another few seconds, and then it withdrew up into the clouds. Not gone, just reloading. I could see this storm sweeping its way from Bad Bob’s location to ours, picking up ammunition along the way, like a boy collecting stones to throw. Congested shipping lanes out there. Naval vessels flying under various flags. Pleasure craft and yachts and sailing ships and cruise ships smaller than this one . . .

Lewis’s strength gave out, and he lost his grip on the railing. He fell to his knees. I could feel David’s agony rippling through the co

I reached out and put my hand on his sweat-matted hair.

Finally, he turned his head and looked at me. Just one look, not very long. Bone-deep exhaustion in him, and just a tiny trace of regret.

“Jo, you have to stop yourself,” he said. “Please. Stop yourself.”

“Too late,” I told him, and took control of the bubble away from him.

It was a shock, how much power was involved. Even with the enormous flood pouring in from the storm, from Bad Bob himself, the force that hit me was staggering. A normal Warden, no matter how accomplished, would have been shredded in seconds.

Lewis collapsed limply on the deck, rolled away, and began to crawl slowly.

I rolled him faceup, and held him in place with a foot on his chest. I turned my face to the storm, looking into the abyss.

Nietzsche was right—it also looked into me.

“Stay put,” I said to Lewis. “I want you to see this. You used to be an altruist, but I watched you change. You turned into such a realist, with all your cold win/lose/ draw equations. You just never thought you’d acutally lose, did you?”

Lewis reached in his pocket and pulled out a small glass bottle. It was sturdy, one of those pocket travel samples of men’s cologne. Designed to be break-resistant, but still meeting all the glass-only requirements of a Dji

I saw him struggle with the choice. That was a no-win scenario.

He eventually did the moral thing, and tried to smash it against the deck. It didn’t break.

“Where are the other Dji

Lewis nodded, eyes tightly closed. I wondered why he wouldn’t look at me. I wondered what he saw.