Ill Wind

Fuck. She chugged again. And again. The engine sputtered and roared back to life.

"Oh, baby, no, don't do this, don't—" Delilah wasn't listening. She gulped air, coughed gas, choked.

We coasted to a halt on the gravel shoulder, next to a road sign proclaiming the wonders of a McDonald's just five miles ahead on the right. Under Ronald's cheery leer, I got out and resisted the urge to kick tires. I could fix her. I always fixed her.

But not wearing the new purple velvet. Dammit. I'd bought some more practical clothes, but they were still in the plastic shopping bags in the trunk, and there wasn't a changing room in sight. Ah well, the road wasn't that busy, and I was desperate. I grabbed jeans and a button-front shirt and climbed into the backseat.

Getting out of velvet pants is not as easy as it sounds, at least not in the backseat of a Mustang. Not that I hadn't had practice, but still, there was the embarrassment factor; every time I heard a car, I had to duck down and hold my breath. Finally, I was down to the purple satin panties and lace shirt—no bra, because I'd wanted to make a good impression on David. Which apparently I hadn't, because he wasn't here to appreciate it.

I was completely naked except for the panties when I heard a tap on the window behind me, screamed, and threw my velvet jacket over as much of myself as it would cover.

Of course. Why had I ever doubted who it would be?

"You bastard!" I yelped. David looked puzzled and far too i

"Sure." He did. I scrambled around, pulling on blue jeans first, then making sure I had my eyes boring into his back while I put on the denim button-down. I had a bra somewhere in the shopping bag, but I didn't want to take the time.

I knocked on the window and slid across the seat, opened the passenger door, and got out to face him.

"It's a fu

"As if I want to hear it," I snapped. "Jesus, you scared the crap out of me!"

"Sorry." He didn't look sorry, but there was a little color in his cheeks that hadn't been there last time we'd said good-bye. A little glitter in his eyes that probably wasn't regret. "I thought you were in trouble."

"Genius! I am in trouble." I stomped around, popped Delilah's hood, and set the prop in place. "The engine folded."

"Yeah?" He looked over my shoulder. "What is it?"

"Hell if I know." I started examining hoses. He didn't bother me, which was odd—how many guys do you know who wouldn't stand over you and offer advice even if they don't know a radiator from a radish? After a few minutes, I looked back and saw he'd taken off his pack and was sitting quietly on it, leafing through a paperback. "What the hell are you doing?"

"Reading, what does it look like I'm doing?" He turned down a page at the sound of a car approaching, stood up, and held out a thumb. The truck blew past in a smear of wind and chrome.

"You're hitching?"

"Beats walking."

He held out his thumb again. I checked more hoses. They all looked good. The clamps were intact. Dammit. I didn't think it was a valve problem, but with vintage Mustangs, you never knew. I'd already had Delilah's engine rebuilt twice.

I spun away from the car, put greasy hands on my hips, and stared at him. "Okay. I may be slow, but eventually I get it. You're following me."

He concentrated on trying to flag down a bright yellow Volkswagen bug the exact color of a lemon drop, but it didn't even slow down.

"It's the main road out of town," he said. "And I'm heading for Phoenix, remember?"

"You are following me!" I resisted the urge to kick Delilah's tire; there was no reason to take it out on the baby. "And you know something."

"Like what?" He didn't look concerned. In fact, he didn't even look interested.

"Like who's doing this to me."

"Well, I know it's not me. Does that help?" He gave up on the road and went back to the easy-chair comfort of his backpack. I gave him a glare and went back to checking hoses, but Delilah didn't give me any hints.

"Try it again," David suggested. He was back sitting down, reading. I checked the oil and ignored him. Nope, it was full and grime-free. Double dammit. I couldn't see anything blown, no telltale sprays of oil or fluid. The block looked good.

No sense in delaying the inevitable. I dropped to the gravel, rolled over, and squirmed under the car.

"Need any help?"

"No," I yelled. "Go away!"

"Okay." I heard David get up and walk over to the road as another car approached. It slowed down, then sped up a squeal of tires. "Jerk."

"Not everybody's as nice as I am," I agreed. "Shit. Shit shit shit." The engine looked good from down here, too. I was getting oil-smeared and gravel-gouged for nothing. "This is just great. Come on, baby, give me a break here."

I slid back out, cleaned gravel out of the palms of my hands and brushed off my blue jeans, shook dust out of my dark hair, and a

I slid into the driver's seat and turned the key.

Delilah hummed to life, smooth and even as ever. I idled her for a while, gave her gas, revved her, closed my eyes, and listened for any hitches.

Nothing. I let it fall back to idle and felt the vibration in my skin.

David was reading The Merchant of Venice. He was kicked back, relaxed, feet up. His brown hair gleamed red highlights in the sun, and overhead the sky was blue, blue, merciless blue.

I popped the clutch and rolled past him, accelerating. He never looked up.

Ten feet past the billboard, I hit the brakes and skidded to a gravel-spewing stop. In the rearview mirror, I saw him turn down the page, put the book back in his backpack, and heft the thing like it weighed no more than my purse.

He stowed it in the backseat and got in without a word. As he got in, I grabbed his hand and held it palm up, then passed my hand over it and concentrated.

Nothing. If he was a Warden—Earth Warden, I suspected—he had no glyphs. Maybe a Wildling? They were few and far between, from what I'd ever heard, but it was possible he had some kind of talent. Maybe.

He took his hand back, frowning slightly. "And that was—?"

"Checking to see if you washed your hands."

He looked doubtfully at me—oily, dusty, grimy. I accelerated out onto the open road.

"How'd you find me?" I asked.

"Luck," he said.

"Yeah," I agreed gloomily. "Luck. I'll bet."

Five miles down the road, I spotted a cloud on the horizon ahead of us. Just a little cloud about the size of my hand. Hardly anything, really.

But I could feel the storm coming back. Son of a bitch.

By the time the sun went down, I was exhausted. I pla

David didn't drive.

"At all?" I asked. "I mean, you can't?"

"I'm from New York," he explained. As if that explained it. To me, it was like meeting somebody with three heads from the planet Bozbarr. It also caused a big sucking hole in my plans—I hadn't wanted to pull over at all on the way to Oklahoma, beyond gas and bathroom stops. But the world looked sparkly and jagged, I was floating about an inch outside my body, and my muscles trembled like soggy rubber bands.