Windfall

All I needed to do was hit her from behind with a powerful wind gust, enough to break her grip on the guy she was holding, and at the same time tip him backward and encourage him to hop down onto the concrete again.

Simple. Relatively elegant. And a hell of a lot better than waiting for the Dji

I closed my eyes, took a fast, deep breath, and reached out for control of the air around me.

And missed.

I gasped and reached farther, stretched. Felt a faint stirring come to me. A stiff breeze. Nothing nearly strong enough. Oh my God… I felt clumsy, drugged, imprecise. Horribly impaired. I fought my way up onto the aetheric, feeling like I was swimming against a flood tide, and when I arrived everything was gray, dimmed, distant. Gray as ash.

It was like what had happened to me over breakfast with Sarah and Eamon, only far worse.

I buckled down and went deep, all the way deep, into reserves I hadn’t called on since I’d survived the Demon Mark. Pulled energy out of my cells to fire the furnace of power inside. Pulled every scrap of power I had and threw it into the mix…

And it wasn’t enough. I could bring the wind but I couldn’t control it. It would be worse than useless, it would hit with the force of a tornado and swirl uncontrollably, throw the man’s fragile human body onto the concrete and that would be my fault…

Prada sensed I was doing something. She snarled and extended her free hand toward me, talons outstretched and gleaming, and it was déjà vu all over again.

I could feel her reaching into my chest to take hold of my pounding heart. She wouldn’t even have to work hard to kill me; it would be a simple matter of disrupting the electrical impulses ru

“David!” I yelped. I didn’t mean to; I knew better, dammit, but I was scared and there was a Warden who was going to die because I wasn’t strong enough…

“David? Where?” Cherise, distracted from the drama for a second, stared at me.

“Who, the guy up on the rail? That’s not David, is—”

I felt the warm surge of power, flaring to a white-hot snap, and David came from out of nowhere between parked cars, olive drab coat belling around him in the wind. Auburn and gold and fire in flesh. Moving faster than human flesh could manage. Nobody standing around watching the action even glanced at him. To their eyes, he didn’t even exist.

The other four Dji

Prada hissed and instantly transferred her attack to him, which was a mistake; it brought him to a stop, all right, but only because he wanted to get a good, hard look at her. He looked tired, so horribly tired, but he dismissed whatever she was trying to do to him with a negligent shake of his head. He looked at the man on the railing, then the cops. Took it in, in a single comprehensive glance.

I wondered, not for the first time, what Dji

Whatever it was, it couldn’t have been pretty. I saw faint lines groove themselves around his mouth and eyes.

His eyes turned to hot, molten metal, and his skin took on a hard shine. Getting ready for battle. He looked at Prada, who returned the glance with level calm.

“Why are you doing this?” he asked.

“I don’t answer to you,” she replied. “You betrayed us. Turned your back on us.”

David turned to Alice, who raised pale eyebrows. “It’s begun,” she said. “It’s spreading like a disease. A Free Dji

He looked appalled. “Jonathan ordered this?”

“Of course not.” Alice’s cornflower blue eyes fixed on Prada again, unblinking.

“Ashan killed her master for her, in return for her loyalty.”

Prada echoed, sarcastically, “My master.” It was a curse, loaded with acid and venom. “He didn’t deserve to lick my shoes. I broke no laws. I never touched him.”

“What about him?” David said, and nodded at the Warden she was jerking around on the railing. “What has he done to you to deserve this?”

Prada’s elegant lips compressed into a hard line. “They all deserve this.”

“Oh, that’s where we differ,” he said. “They don’t. Let him go. If you do, I swear that I’ll protect you if Alice makes a move against you.”

“David,” Alice said, and there was a warning in it. “I’m here on Jonathan’s orders.” He ignored it.

“I’ll protect you,” he repeated. “Let him go.”

Prada bared perfectly white, shark-sharp teeth. She looked, if possible, even more feverish. “You’re Jonathan’s creature,” she said. “You always have been. He and his creatures don’t command me, not anymore.”

David looked—well, shocked. As if she’d just told him the Earth was a pancake carried on the back of a turtle. “What do you mean?”

“I follow the one who knows that humans are our enemies,” Prada said. “The one who understands that our enslavement must end, regardless of the cost. I follow Ashan.”

Oh, shit.

I was looking at a civil war. Playing out right here, messily, in the human world—Dji

Jonathan didn’t hate humans, but he didn’t love us, either. We were just an a

David was the only Dji

They couldn’t yet see the damage that had been done to him.

He didn’t look impaired, though, not at the moment. The wind ruffled his bronze-struck hair, and the light in his eyes was like an open flame. More Dji

He turned slightly and shifted his gaze to me, and I felt that co

I have to try to stop this, I felt him say across that silent, secret link. Hold on. This may hurt.

He wasn’t kidding. Suddenly the drain between us—the one-way flow cascading from me into him—opened up to become a torrent, and damn, it didn’t just hurt, it felt as if my guts were being ripped out and scrubbed with steel wool. I must have looked like hell, because Cherise called my name and I felt her grab me by the shoulders. I couldn’t pull my eyes away from what was happening in the Bermuda triangle of the three Dji

Whatever was about to happen, it was going to happen now.

David started walking forward. Prada’s eyes—burning ruby red now—followed him, but she didn’t move. Still caught in her iron-hard grip, the Warden watched tensely, too. Helpless to affect any outcome. He wasn’t a Weather Warden, I could sense that much, and I doubted he was an Earth power. Probably Fire, which wouldn’t do him a damn bit of good right now.

Poor bastard. He’d spent his life thinking that he was a pi

David reached the railing. Prada didn’t make a move. David considered the metal for a second, then hopped up with a fluid, catlike movement, and began walking the thin, slick curve. He was smooth and careless about it, as if it were solid ground. No hesitation. No human awkwardness. It was as if gravity was just another rule to break for him. Even the gusts of wind didn’t have any effect except to whip the tail of his coat out to the side as he covered the rest of the distance toward Prada and the Warden.