Heat Stroke

I walked around the couch to where Kevin was randomly picking up CDs and sliding them back into the rack, hands shaking.

I put my arms around him. For a frozen second it was like embracing a corpse—no response at all— and then I felt his muscles relax and huddle into me, accepting the comfort. He smelled bad, but I didn’t have to breathe if I didn’t want to. I wondered how much of his slovenly approach to hygiene and housekeeping was designed to keep the perfectly coifed, house-proud Yvette at a distance.

I caressed his oily, lank hair and whispered, “Kevin, I am your friend. And I’ll come back to you. Just please, let me save him. You don’t want to leave him there. You know what’ll happen to him. You’ve seen it. You’ve felt it. You have the power to save somebody, Kevin. Use it.”

He slipped a hand into the pocket that I knew held my bottle, but he didn’t bring it out. It was almost like he was clutching a rabbit’s foot… his own personal lucky charm.

“You’ll come back?” he asked. “Promise?”

“I swear.”

I held him for another few seconds, which ended when I felt a palm slide down to my butt. “Hey! Hands!”

“Sorry,” he mumbled, and moved back. “Don’t— don’t let her hurt you. And come back.”

I reached out and kissed him. One chaste, gentle kiss. When I pulled away he was staring at me with wide, stu

Never been kissed. Nothing sweet about the sixteen he was living.

I spread my arms, ready to rise into the aetheric.

“Stop!” Kevin cried. I looked at him and saw that he’d taken the perfume vial out of his pocket. His knuckles were white around it. “Wait. I can’t. You’re all I have.” A deep, chest-heaving breath, like a sob.

“Kevin, no—”

“Back in the bottle. Sorry.”

I screamed out my frustration, but the gray swirl was already sucking me down, helpless, into oblivion.

I didn’t want to dream, because I knew what it would be. Something bad. I’d come to the conclusion that the only things Dji

I hate being right.

In my dream, the Dji

Each of the three sentient events out there—the forming earthquake, the strengthening fire in Yellowstone, the storm cell gathering in the Atlantic— had drawn Wardens in response. Of those, the top masters of each area had Dji

… a hundred victims.

I watched, helpless, as the sparklies saturated in a slow, graceful rain through the aetheric, bathing the Dji

Some of the Wardens understood what was happening. They pulled their Dji

The rest pushed blindly ahead, focused on the objectives.

In California, tectonic plates rippled, shifted, slid. Earth Wardens were pushed aside by the forces at work, their weakened Dji

In Yellowstone, fire flowed unchecked, like a river; it crested a hill and raced down, leaping from treetop to treetop, lapping the trunks in a molten river of flame. Trees cracked and exploded with sounds like gunshots as sap boiled inside. There were no animals ru

Fire Wardens were struggling to build containments, but it was useless. Their Dji

Yellowstone was going to burn. Again.

I couldn’t even bear to look at the raging fury that was forming out to sea. Please. Tell me how I can stop this.

The combined might of the Wardens couldn’t stop it. The idea that I could do anything, anything at all, was sheer lunacy.

I felt a presence with me. Something cool and peaceful.

Next to me sat a tall woman with unearthly beautiful features, hair white as snow, eyes pure amethyst.

Sara, I said. She gave me a sad, gentle smile.

Am I? She looked out at the devastation below. So much pain, for so little. I wish this would end. I wish I could stop it.

Can anyone? I asked. Rhetorical question. I rested my chin on raised knees like a little girl, and watched the end of the world in fire and flood and the slow rolling of the earth.

Oh, yes. Sara seemed surprised I didn’t know. Of course. You can.

I straightened up and met her eyes. Such cool, deep eyes, all the flecks and facets of a jewel. No wonder Patrick loved her. No wonder he’d do anything, no matter how horrible, to ensure her survival.

Me?

She nodded slightly. Tears formed in her eyes, ran down her smooth, perfectly pale cheeks.

Patrick knew, she said. From the first moment he saw you.

That I could close the rift?

That you are the rift.

I didn’t have time to feel the shock of that, because just then the pain started. Sara winced too, laid her hands over her chest and bent forward. It felt like we were being pulled by a fishhook, right through our bodies… tugged somewhere.

What the hell…

Sara looked up. Her eyes were flat black now, the jewel color lost, and her hair was twisting and blackening into a burned and petrified ruin.

It’s time to go. Remember. Remember.

And then it was lost, all a gray dream, floating in oblivion.

Pop goes the perfume cork.

I was ready, this time—I came boiling out, took form as soon as I was free of the bottle, was already moving to grab Kevin’s T-shirt and back him up against the wall.

“You!” I yelled. “You treacherous, shallow little—”

He was paler than usual, babbling something that I wasn’t listening to, because there were Wardens and Dji

And there was this summons. Dragging at me like an anchor, pulling me apart.

It was still there, throbbing come home like a heartbeat inside me.

Kevin was holding my bottle in a death grip. I grabbed his wrist and squeezed. “Drop it!” I snarled. “Drop it or I take your hand off.”

“Don’t hurt me.” He managed to blurt that out, and I was trapped, another barrier in the road. Dammit. I let go—no choice—and backed away.

We were still in Patrick’s remodeled apartment. The TV was showing something that involved a lot of ships in space blowing up, but the sound was on mute. I spun away from Kevin and stretched out my senses, such as were left, trying to find someone, anyone to help, because I absolutely had to go. The summons wasn’t something that could be denied. The co

“Sara!” I yelled. “Sara! Please! I don’t understand what to do! Help me!”

The shadow of the Ifrit glided past me, drifting, barely visible. I grabbed for it, but it slipped away.

“Feed,” she whispered.

I couldn’t feed her. I had nothing in reserve, and so little coming from David that I was afraid to try to pull more; it might snap the co

I turned to Kevin. He was still up against the wall where I’d left him, looking spooked and more than a little angry; I didn’t have time for that, or for his adolescent angst, or even for his pain.

There was too much pain, now. His—and mine, and David’s—was barely a drop in the bucket.