Ill Wind

It was boiling. Not in the physical sense, but in the aetheric; something had gotten the land stirred up, all right, and the turbulent, angry pulses were enough to make me want to drop back into my safe, secure little cubicle far from the danger. Fires were combusting everywhere…. It didn't take much, in such an angry mood, for a forest to start self-immolating.

I pinpointed Estrella's location—she was broadcasting desperately in the aetheric—and went up, way up, until daylight gave way to twilight, which gave way to the false night of the highest levels of the mesosphere. Fifty thousand feet above it, the disturbance was more like a gentle current; I could start to manipulate things to my advantage.

Within a minute, I had formed a cold arctic-fed breeze by tu

"Star, listen to me, I'm about to drop a very heavy cloudburst right on top of you, understand? It'll hold the fire down long enough for you to make a hole and get out of there. Star?"

Her croak barely sounded human. It was hard to make anything out over the roar of the fire. "Fucked up, Jojo. Damn. We all fucked up."

"Star, stay with me. Hey, you remember the rhyme? Star light, star bright—"

"You crazy?" A bare whisper of air.

I kept going. "First star I see tonight—come on, you know this one…." It was hard, so hard to move the clouds into the right position. I could feel her there, reaching out to me. I could feel the despair and fear. "Wish I may—wish I might—"

I flipped the switch on the storm, and I heard the roar of rain pour down. I hoped the hiss I heard was steam, not fire.

And then I heard Estrella laughing. "Say a prayer, say a Mass… keep this fire off my ass!" She collapsed into a coughing fit. Then whooped.

I let myself relax. Fatal mistake. I felt—heard—saw the aetheric boiling back, rebounding at us like a snapped rubber band. "No, Star, listen, don't yell, run! Now!"

She didn't hear me. She was still whooping in celebration.

The line went dead.

I sat tensely, answering lines and co

Six minutes later, I had an incoming line light up, and a brisk British voice said, "You're looking for a Fire Warden coming out, right?"

"Estrella Almondovar," I said. "Did you get her?"

A brief, pregnant pause. "Got her. We have one of the best Earth specialists with her right now, seeing to her."

"How bad—?"

"Bad," he said flatly. "Third degree burns over thirty percent of her body. Lucky."

"Lucky?"

"Twenty Fire Wardens in the Park today," he said. "Sixteen dead so far."

Say a prayer, say a Mass, keep this fire off my ass. You did it, chica. Otherwise, I'd be a pile of ash in hell.

It was the first thing she'd said to me when she'd gotten healthy enough to call from rehab. I'd held her hand that day in the hospital when Marion had broken the news to her that her powers had been shattered, that she'd never again be able to control fire. She still had her life. After a fashion, she had her health. After everything the Earth Wardens and doctors could do for her, she even had a passable face.

I'd never shaken the feeling that I should have done more and done better. And yet Star had never complained, never second-guessed, never blamed me. I only, ever, blamed myself.

I must have fallen asleep again. When I woke up, we were still driving, and Estrella was singing under her breath to a Mado

I realized—finally—that we were back in the Land Rover. No wonder I could stretch out in the backseat. "Hey," I croaked. "Water?"

"Sorry," Star said cheerfully. "Can't stop yet. We want to make sure they're not on the trail."

"They?"

"You know." She gestured with her left hand, and something about it caught my attention. It was skeletal. Leathery. Scarred. God. I'd forgotten for a second about the damage to her body. "Marion and her merry men. You know they tried to kill you, right?"

I tried sitting up. My body ached like I'd come down with the mother of all flu viruses, but everything seemed to still function right. Toes and fingers wiggled. My nose reported the unpleasant lingering smell of burnt hair.

"You're one lucky girl," Star continued. "My money would've been on that polyester crap you're wearing melting all over you. You got only a couple of spark burns, that's all."

I took a deep breath and asked for the worst of it. "Delilah? My car."

"She's a real fixer-upper. Time to trade up to something made in the last twenty years, I'd say. Hey, what do you think about this one?" Star gestured out at the hood of the Land Rover. "Marion, pretty good taste, eh? I always wanted one of these. Weird that she left the engine ru

David was in the passenger seat of the truck. Left the engine ru

Then again, I had a better question. And a more pressing one.

"How'd you know where to find me?" I asked. Star gri

"You're kidding, right? I get your message, I see the aetheric get all fucked up, and I think… Jojo! And there you were. I got to the parking lot just about the time the freaking sky started falling. Man, that was one big lightning bolt. Biggest I ever saw." Star shook her head. "Like I said, you're lucky."

"You should let me out somewhere," I said. "Ditch the truck before you get home. This is serious, Star, I don't want you in the middle of it."

"Yeah, no kidding it's serious, La Quinta looks like a hurricane hit it." She looked over her shoulder at me. "Yeah? Did it?"

"Sort of." I rested my elbows on the seat backs and leaned closer. "I really don't want you in this."

"Hey, Queen of the Universe, nobody asked what you wanted. I don't ditch the girl that saved my life." She glanced over at David. "Or her verdaderamente lindo boyfriend."

"Star!"

"What? You don't think he's cute?"

"He's sitting right there!"

"And so grateful I am." She flashed him a half-crazy grin, which seemed to have no real effect on David. "Chica, you always did have good taste."

I sighed. No way to reason with her when she was in this kind of take-no-prisoners mood, and besides, it was nice to hear somebody was enjoying themselves at my expense. "Okay, right, he's definitely lindo. Um, where are we, exactly?"

"Exactly?" Star punched the GPS keyboard.

I rolled my eyes. "Come on."

"Aw, you're no fun. Okay, approximately, we're about two hours outside of OKC. Back roads. I didn't want to stop too long, 'cause, you know, you're on the run."