Firestorm

"Do what?" I screamed back, and grabbed for the panic strap as the SUV bounced over rocks. Still moving backward at a speed that no human-operated vehicle was supposed to go, at least in that direction and in the middle of nowhere.

"Anything!" she roared.

The noise of the tree crashing toward us was lost in the constant deafening train-whistle scream of the fire, but there was no doubt that it was going to hit us. And if the truck was put out of commission…

I sucked in a deep breath of air that was almost too hot to breathe, concentrated, and grabbed the dashboard as I stared at the falling tree.

Come on, come on, come on… Updrafts. There were plenty of updrafts, no shortage of those, but they were wild and unpredictable, fueled by an incredible outpouring of energy.

I grabbed hold of a rising superheated column of air and wrenched it free of its source, then directed it at an angle at the falling tree. Twenty feet. It was coming for us fast, and no way were we going to clear it in time. Flames all around us. Ten feet. Heading right for the roof of the SUV…

I let the superheated blast of air go, cooled the outer edge, and it hit the tree like a huge blunt object, hammering it off course. Not by much.

The outer blackened pine branches snapped off on my side of the truck, and the trunk crushed the underbrush just a couple of inches to the right of the SUV's hood.

Emily shot me a disbelieving look. I shrugged and took my hands off the dashboard. Left wet, sweaty handprints behind.

I couldn't see the Demon anymore. Wishful thinking made me hope that Demons weren't impervious to fire, but damn, I pretty much knew better than that. Demons were impervious to everything nature or humans could toss their way. They could be contained by Dji

We were clear of the fire suddenly. Trees swayed around us, uneasy in the looming smoke, but nothing was aflame around us. Emily had, temporarily, outrun the flames.

She slowed the SUV, stopped, and wiped her hands on her filthy pants. She was shaking all over, and black as a coal miner at the end of a shift. Eyes red and bloodshot.

"That," she said faintly, "was maybe a little too close."

"A little," I agreed. "Nice driving."

"Nice wind management," she replied, and was overtaken by a series of racking, tearing coughs. Sounded painful. I leaned over, put my hand on her back, and concentrated on the air inside her lungs. I oxygenated it as much as possible, then extended it into a bubble within the cab of the SUV. Couldn't do it for long, because we'd both get high and giggly, but it would help, short-term.

"What the hell just happened?" I asked, in between gasps. Emily put the SUV in gear and managed—somehow—to turn it around on the narrow road so we could drive forward instead of backward. Smoke was thick and acrid around us, blowing our direction.

"Something's working against us," Emily said grimly. "Don't know what it is. I thought it was another group of Wardens, but now I don't know. It's not just the typical crap you get in wildfires. You know what I'm talking about?"

I did. Wildfires were dangerous in and of themselves; they hardly needed any villains to come add complications. I still vividly remembered the big Yellowstone fire that had claimed so many lives among the Wardens, several years back… the one that had destroyed Star both physically and mentally. That hadn't been anything but the nature of fire and the cruel purpose of the earth.

I had a good idea of who had been messing with the fire here: a Demon Mark-ridden Warden. And that made sense of why the Dji

Out of nowhere, I remembered David telling me, We are made of fire. He'd meant Dji

I started to tell Emily about it, but then I realized that it wouldn't do any good. Even if she believed me—which was doubtful—there wasn't anything she could do about it. We were on our own out here in the wild Canadian wilderness, apparently. I missed Marion. She'd know, if anybody did, how much trouble we were all in right now.

Emily got us back to a logging road, then out to a paved two-lane road. There were police barricades flashing in the distance. She slowed and pulled over to the narrow shoulder.

"We need more Wardens," she said. "Weather and Fire. Think you can get us anything?"

"No idea. I'll try." I pulled out my cell phone and dialed up the hotline number. Busy. I reconsidered, dialed Paul's personal number.

Busy.

Marion's rang, though. She answered without her typical calm assurance; in fact, she sounded downright sharp. "Joa

"Yeah."

"Where are you?"

"Wildfire across the border in Canada," I said. "Long story. Look, there's a desperate need for—"

"I know," she cut me off. "We've got wildfires breaking out everywhere, and damn few Fire Wardens left to fight it. There's not much I can do for you guys. Do the best you can. Let it burn, if you have to."

I cradled the phone against my chest and looked at Emily's grimy face. "Where's this thing heading?"

Under the black oily veil of smoke, she looked troubled. "Ultimately? I'd have to say it's making a beeline for Montreal. But one thing's for sure, it'll take out every town on the way, too. Five thousand, ten thousand homes at a chunk. If this thing isn't stopped…"

I got back on the phone. "No go on the hands-off, Marion. We need to find a way to firebreak this thing."

"I'll get Weather on it," she sighed. It was clearly not a new refrain. "See what you can do from there. And Jo?"

"Yeah?"

"Lewis says that there's a hurricane brewing just past Jamaica. If it forms and comes inland, we could be looking at another very bad time in Florida. There's another one right behind it that looks like it could veer to hit the Gulf Coast, or South America."

"Is there anything that isn't going crazy?"

"No," she said flatly. "Large cave-in in Kentucky, several hundred miners and tourists trapped in the region. Most of our Earth Wardens are converging on that, but we've got warning signs all up and down the Cascadia subduction again."

"So. This would be the end of the world, then."

"We're keeping hitching posts handy for the Four Horsemen. Any luck on the Dji

"Some," I lied. Didn't seem much point in adding my bad news to the pile. "I'm working on it."

"Then you'd better quit screwing around with the fire and get the Dji

I hung up, took in a deep breath or two, and turned back to Emily. "Right," I said. "Let's get back to work."