Firestorm

She took my breath away, made my heart fill up and spill over. "Not like you? Not a chance in hell," I said. My voice was unsteady. "I love you. You're one hell of a great kid. And you're my kid."

Her eyes glittered fiercely, and it took me a second to realize that it wasn't magic, only tears.

"We'd better keep moving," she said, and turned back to start the car. "So what do you think? Breakfast first, or apocalypse?"

She was starting to inherit my sense of humor, too. Hmmm. Breakfast sounded pretty tempting. Lots more tempting than an apocalypse, anyway.

Those hardly ever came with coffee.

Chapter Four

I spent part of the drive napping, and dreaming. Not good dreams. Why couldn't my out-of-body experiences take me to a nice spa, with David giving me oil massages? Why did my brain have to punish me? I was fairly sure that I really didn't deserve it, at least not on a regular basis.

Unsettled by the nightmares, I kicked Imara out of the driver's seat as soon as I was sure I wasn't going to drop off into dreamland without warning. I always felt better driving, and the Camaro had a silky, powerful purr that welcomed me with vibrations through my entire body as I cranked her up. She needed a name, I decided. Something intimidating yet sexy. Nothing was coming to mind, though.

As we cruised along, switching highways about every hour because heaven forbid travel on the East Coast should be easy, I found myself longing for the endless straight roads in the West and South. Maine was beautiful, no doubt about it, but I wanted to drive fast. Responsibility and panic had that effect on me. Being behind the wheel gave me time to think, and there was a lot to think about, none of it good. All of it frightening.

I couldn't stop scrubbing my hand against my skirt, trying to get the phantom feel of the Demon Mark off me. I hadn't been infected. I knew that, intellectually, but it still made my stomach lurch when I thought about how close I'd come.

We stopped for breakfast at a truck stop, and I bought a couple of pairs of blue jeans and tight-fitting T-shirts. My shoes were missing altogether, so I added a sturdy pair of hiking boots and some feminine-looking flip-flops. Best to be prepared.

I paid extra to use the showers, rinsing off grime and mud and exhaustion under the warm beat of the massaging showerhead. Luxury. I wanted to curl up in the warmth and sleep for days, but instead I toweled off, blow-dried my hair into a relatively straight, shimmering curtain, and dressed in the jeans, T-shirt, and hiking boots.

It looked appropriate for Seacasket, anyway.

Back on the road, I fought an increasingly jittery desire to meddle with the weather hanging out to sea. Storms, of course. Big electrical storms, packing loads of wind and swollen with rain; I didn't sense any lethal tendencies in the front, but those were no fluffy happy clouds out there. Black thunderheads, trailing gray veils over the ocean, illuminated from within by constant pastel flutters of lightning. It was, as storms went, nothing more than a surly kid, but it could pack a wallop if it got aggressive. Right now, it was content to glare and mutter, out there at sea. Kicking the tops off waves. That was good; I didn't need more to handle.

Imara had my taste in music. That wasn't too much of a surprise, but it was gratifying. We both belted out the chorus to "Right Place, Wrong Time," both aware of just how appropriate that song was in the radio playlist.

We cruised into Seacasket at just after 7 a.m.

It was one of those Norman Rockwell towns with graceful old bell towers, spreading oaks and elms. A few 1960s-era glass buildings that looked like misguided, embarrassing attempts to bring Seacasket out of the golden age. That was the only impression I had of it, because the one time I'd materialized in the center of town, I'd come as a Dji

The main street was called… Main Street. The turn-of-the-last-century downtown was still kept in good repair, although the hardware stores and milliners had long ago turned into craft stores ("crap stores," as my sister had always dismissively referred to them) and "antique" dealers whose stock-in-trade was reproduction Chinese knockoffs and things that got too dusty over at the craft stores. So far as newcomers, there were a few: Starbucks had set up shop, as had McDonald's down the street. I spotted a couple more fast food giants competing for attention, though sedately; Seacasket must have had one of those no-ugly-sign ordinances that kept things discreet and eye-level, instead of the Golden Arches becoming a hazard to low-flying aircraft.

There was a Wal-Mart. There's always a Wal-Mart.

I pulled into the parking lot toward the side—Wal-Mart had a crowd, of course—and idled the car for a moment, soaking in the atmosphere. When I rolled down the Camaro's window, birds were singing, albeit a bit shrilly, and there was a fresh salt-scented breeze blowing inland. The temperature was cool and fresh, and all seemed right with the Seacasket world.

Which was, in itself, weird.

Imara, in the passenger seat, was watching me curiously. "What are you doing?" she asked.

"I thought you knew everything I did," I said.

"Past, not present or future. Are you reading the weather?"

"Not exactly." Because weirdly enough, there didn't seem to be any weather in Seacasket. Sure, the storm I'd been noticing was still out to sea, but there was an odd energy at work in this town. Something I hadn't felt before. As if the whole place was climate-controlled… which wouldn't have made a lick of sense even if there had been a Warden on-site, which I could tell there wasn't. The Ma'at, maybe? I didn't think so. The Ma'at, rival organization to the Wardens, had their own way of doing things, which mostly involved letting nature have its way while smoothing off the highs and lows of the excesses, under the theory that if you allow the system natural corrections—even costly ones—ultimately, the entire system is more stable, less prone to lethal swings.

There was a certain logic to it, and I wasn't sure I disagreed with the Ma'at in principle… just in practice. Because I simply wasn't cold-blooded enough to sit back and watch a disaster. I could easily prevent them from taking i

This wasn't the Ma'at, though. This felt more like Dji

I turned in the seat and faced Imara. "What can you tell me?"

She cocked her head, looking interested but not committed. "About?…"

"You know what David knew, right? So? What can you tell me about Seacasket?"

She'd inherited more from her father than just knowledge; I saw that in the flash of secrets in her eyes. "Not very much."

"I need to know where to find this Oracle thing. You're supposed to be my native guide, kid. So guide."

"Maybe I don't know how to find it." She lifted one shoulder in a shrug, and kept her metallic Dji

"Yes, you do. Why are you being so—"

"Evasive?" she shot back, and ran her fingers through her long, straight black hair. My hair was curling again in the humidity. I resented her hair. Secretly. "Possibly because this is certain death for a human to attempt, and I might not want you to die just yet."