Firestorm

He didn't look like the big head cheese, really—tall, long arms and legs, a kind of lanky grace and an ironic smile, brown hair that badly needed a trim, a worn pair of close-fitting blue jeans and a loose fla

A little like Jonathan, now that I thought about it.

He gave me a bare, welcoming nod, and took a good look at the imprisoned Warden, whose eyes had started glowing even more brightly at the sight of him.

"Hey, Joa

"Guess," I sighed.

Lewis always did have an economy of words. He reached over and yanked down the collar of her shirt.

It was only a glimpse, but I saw it—a black tangled mass that writhed just under her skin, and then burrowed deeper, hiding from view.

Demon Mark.

I had an instant nauseating sense-memory of how that felt. How seductively warm it could feel. How the power of it pulsed so brightly in your veins. You felt like you could do anything with one of those, and sometimes, you really could.

I couldn't save her. So far as I knew, there was no way to save any of them.

"Marion," Lewis said. "Got anything in this building that will hold somebody with a Demon Mark?"

He didn't trouble to keep his voice down, and it sent shock waves through the assembled Wardens. Demon Marks, like Free Dji

"There's a secured cell two floors down," she said. "We usually augment it with Dji

"Yeah, that's not going to happen." Lewis's eyes assessed those standing around, lightning-quick, and he pointed at Nathan and two other Wardens. "You three. Go with Marion. Get her secured. Marion, we'll talk later about what we can do for her." He watched as the parade organized itself, then put his lips close to my ear and said, "Come with me. We need to talk. Privately."

I stepped back and nodded, then led him around wreckage and repairs and down around the corner, to an office that had remained mostly intact. There was a junior-level Warden working on forecast maps. I evicted her with a significant nod of my head, and closed the door behind her, then turned to face Lewis.

"Senior management?" he asked.

"Mostly dead," I said. "Paul's on the walking wounded list; Marion isn't even that good. Morale's in the toilet, of course. I haven't seen any other faces I recognize from the higher ranks." I stopped and looked straight into his eyes. "We're in big-ass trouble, Lewis."

"No kidding." He leaned against the desk and folded his arms, looking down. Hiding whatever he was thinking. "You know about Jonathan?"

"Imara and David say he's dead."

"Imara?" Lewis looked up, curious.

"Ah—long story. Short version, she's my daughter. Mine and David's."

His lips parted, and his eyes widened, and I had the rare pleasure of seeing Lewis Orwell rendered… speechless. For a moment, anyway. "That's—surprising," he said, finally. "Congratulations. Where is she?"

"Safe, I hope. Away from here, anyway; the Wardens were a little trigger-happy, and even if it isn't too likely they could hurt her, I didn't really want to put it to the test. She's—" Precious. Special. Unique. Strange. Amazing. "She's my kid. Okay, she looks like a Sports Illustrated swimsuit model, but…"

He blinked. "I thought you said she was a kid?"

"Don't ask me how Dji

He made a low-throated sound of amusement. "So in other words, it's been a busy couple of days."

I gestured around at the wreckage in the office, piled like driftwood in the corners. By extension, at the chaos swirling around in the world. "You could say."

"Come here."

I frowned, but took a step closer. He reached out and took my hand, then pulled me into a body-to-body hug. I relaxed against him, letting the comfort of his warmth sink deep. He needed a shower. Hell, so did I. We were well beyond little things like that. After a few seconds, I felt the surge of power building between us… a cell-deep vibration, like calling to like. We had harmonics, we always did have, and the one time we'd allowed it to build out of control, we'd called up storms and shattered windows.

It built so fast, it was breathtaking. Glass and steel rattled around us. I took control of myself and stepped back, breaking the circuit. I glimpsed something wild and a little desperate in Lewis's eyes, quickly covered.

"Did you feel that?" he asked. "Looks like we're getting stronger."

"Just the two of us?"

"No idea, I'm afraid; I could feel it happening to me, but I've always been kind of the far end of the curve." That wasn't ego, just fact. "Still, nothing's what it was yesterday. Not the Dji

Interesting notion. "So maybe we don't need the Dji

"Oh, I wouldn't go that far." He was still watching me. Warm brown eyes, always fired with a little bit of amusement. "It's also possible that maybe you and I are a little more co

"Meaning?"

He stretched out a palm, and a tiny flame flickered into life, lemon-pale and growing redder as I watched.

Redder and larger. Lewis wasn't watching this minor miracle; he was watching me, still with that sly bit of amusement lighting his eyes.

And then he pitched the softball-size ball of fire straight at me. Not a girly pitch, either. He put some English behind it.

I yelped, ducked, and felt the heat singe my hair as the fireball streaked past me. It hit the wall, bounced, landed in a pile of scattered papers, and ignited.

"Shit! What the hell are you doing?" I yelled, and without even thinking about it, felt blindly for the structure of the fire. Delicate as glass, strong as steel, but fragile.

I put it out. Not even a wisp of smoke to show it ever existed.

I rounded on Lewis, shocked and furious; he had his arms crossed, leaning back against the desk, and he was… gri

"What the hell was that?" I demanded.

For answer, he extended his hand again and called another tongue of flame. "Put it out," he said.

"You put it out! This is a nonsmoking building!"

"You're missing my point."

"No, I'm not! You're trying to make me—" I stuttered to a stop, because I realized what he was trying to do. Or, more accurately, trying to demonstrate. Hey, I never said I wasn't a little thick. "Oh."

I extended my hand, cupped it over his, and felt the fire's warmth spill over me. Fire is a kind of fluid, when all is said and done: plasma dynamics. It flowed over my skin, persistent and gentle, and when I opened my palm, it was burning there. A steady tongue of flame like a pilot light, red and gold and blue.

I closed my fist around it and put it out, then opened my fingers again and called fire.

It came without even a hesitation, a flutter and a sense of pleasant warmth on my skin. I stared at it, fascinated, letting it drip from one finger to another, then rolling it back up to my palm.