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"All of what?"
"Bad Bob. The rips in the aetheric. The Dji
That hit me with a cold, hard shock… Definitely, I'd been responsible for Bad Bob getting his comeuppance, not that many people were ever going to believe he'd actually deserved it. And David and I together had been responsible for the poisoning of the aetheric, when he'd created me as a Dji
I elected not to say any of that, however. I just set my jaw and stared back at her, daring her to continue.
"The fire's across the border, in Canada," she said. "It started small, but it's growing. The Wardens overseeing that territory are dead. Lewis says they can't spare anybody else, last time I checked. I'm on my way there, and I need your Dji
"She's not my Dji
"Yeah. Yet you're riding around with one as your chauffeur."
"It's complicated."
"Obviously. And there are major population centers in the path of a Class Four wildfire. That's a little complicated, too." She hesitated, then locked her eyes on mine. Surly and difficult, she might be, but I had never known her to be a liar. "I need your help. It's just me and another Fire Warden who's already there. Those people need somebody to save them, and we're it."
Truth was, I agreed with her. If I turned my back on people who actually needed saving, I was losing my way. Losing my honor. Something inside me insisted that you couldn't save humanity by sacrificing your principles.
I didn't like the way Emily had elected to do this, but I could understand why she'd mousetrapped me. She was desperate. I'd have done the same thing, in her place. Because the lives I'd save would be more important than the nebulous big picture. Maybe that made me weak. Maybe that made me unsuitable for the role of great hero. Lewis would have walked away without hesitation—with regret, not hesitation—but I wasn't, and could never be, Lewis.
"I'm not putting Imara in danger," I said.
"But—"
"She's my daughter, Emily. My daughter."
Emily's mouth opened in surprise, then closed. She finally, reluctantly, nodded.
"Tell me what you need," I said. "I'll do what I can."
"You'd damn well better."
"Oh, and—?" I made a gesture with my sore arm. She looked ashamed. Briefly.
"Might as well," she said, and reached out to finish up the healing. "You're no good to me passed out."
Imara wasn't any too supportive of my decision to hang around and brush up on my firefighting. "This isn't a good idea," she said. "You're not well. And the fire's too big."
We were standing outside, by the car. I put a hand on the smooth, satin finish, then scrubbed away my fingerprints. "You're probably right," I said. "But I can't walk away from it, either. Emily might be a bitch, but she's right. And I'm a Warden. I'm sworn to protect."
"There are others to do this kind of thing."
"Others who aren't here. I'm here. And it's my job, Imara." I looked up at her, and saw the worry on her face. "Relax, kiddo. It's not my first dance. Not my last, either. Emily's a very competent Fire Warden, and if there's a Fire Warden already working on this, I can work the weather angle. We can end this thing."
Her eyes went distant for a few seconds, then snapped back. "There are no Dji
"What?"
"No Dji
Slow, sweet, orgasmic pleasure. Yeah, I remembered.
"If the Dji
"Not for you," I agreed. "If the Dji
"I'm not leaving you!"
I reached out and fitted my hands around her cheeks. Dji
"But—"
"Don't make me order you around." I pulled her into a fierce, warm hug. "Just go. I'll be all right."
"Is it because—I know I'm not—not as powerful as I should be. As you need—"
"No!" I pulled back and smoothed hair away from her face. "Honey, no. None of this is your fault. You're the only good thing that's come out of all this. Okay?"
She nodded slightly, but I could tell she didn't believe me. My Dji
"Go find your father," I said. "Explain to him what happened with Ashan. Find out what we should do next. Okay?"
"Okay," she said, and stepped back. "Mom… be careful."
And then she was gone, blipped out without another sound. I heaved a sigh and turned to see Emily, on her porch, staring at me accusingly. I hadn't heard her come out.
"We really could have used her," she said.
"Imara's the only Dji
"You hope." She looked surly about it.
"What happened to I don't need a Dji
I swear, her scowl could have fractured glass.
Imara, not being in much need of transportation, had left the Camaro sitting in the driveway. It was a choice between that and Emily's battle-scarred SUV, with a four-wheel drive that had seen hard use. We didn't, strictly speaking, actually have to go to the site of the fire; Wardens often did their work remotely. But if this fire was as dangerous as she seemed to think, then being on the ground might be the only way to react quickly enough. Fire was the trickiest of all the elements. Even more than storms, fire had an intelligence, a malevolence. A desire to hurt. The bigger the fire, the smarter and angrier it became. Bad combination.
I chose the SUV. The Camaro really wasn't the kind of car I wanted to subject to off-road conditions.
Emily lived in a tiny little burg called Smyrna Mills, which was mostly distinguished by Smyrna Street—we were out of town in less time than it took to flash a blinker, and heading south to I-95. The other Warden, it turned out, was a country music fan; I wasn't. I mostly spent the time on the drive to Houlton and the Canadian border thinking and watching the skies. They didn't look good. The aetheric was in a boil, everything disturbed; flashbulbs of power were popping all over the place as Wardens tried to deal with their local problems, but it wasn't really a local issue. It was bigger. Nastier. And it was going to get worse.