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Page 3

  And whose fault is that? a little voice whispered nastily in my head. Who shoved him away? Who ran off and fell in love with somebody else?

  It didn't matter, I told that little voice as firmly as possible. Things were what they were.

  Lewis knew I cared for him, but David was my love, my lover, my husband. We all had come to accept that.

  I thought.

  Lewis was watching me, and I couldn't fathom what was going on in his head. I hoped he couldn't guess the argument going on inside mine, either.

  "We're two days from port," he said. "Once we get there, we need to hit the ground running. There are reports of all kinds of problems breaking out. "

  I shook my head. "Not exactly new. "

  "Not exactly," he agreed. "But we're the mechanics of the world, Jo. And things need to be fixed. So most of the Wardens will get back to doing what they do best. "

  "Most," I repeated. "Meaning?"

  "Meaning that I'm going to pull the top three Earth Wardens, and we're going to do our best to analyze what happened to you and David, and make it right if we can. I've been on the phone to Marion Bearheart. She thinks that, in theory, it should be possible to open up the energy conduits within you again, if that's what's gone wrong. "

  That sounded hopeful. It also, at second breath, sounded painful. I winced a little, and saw sympathy flash across Lewis's face. "Yeah," he said. "It's going to hurt. "

  "Used to that. "

  "And David?"

  Signing myself up for painful psychic surgery was one thing, but David . . .

  "David can speak for himself," said a voice from the next bed, and Lewis turned in that direction. Behind him, I saw that David had pulled himself up to a sitting position, chest bare, sheets wrapped tight around his waist. He looked tired and vulnerable, but the sight of him up and alert made my heart take a mad leap of joy. "What do humans take for headaches these days?"

  "Depends on how bad it is," Lewis said, already moving in the direction of the locked medicine cabinets. "On a scale of one to ten?"

  David thought about it, then sighed and rubbed a distracted hand over his short brown hair. "Twenty-five. "

  Luis didn't seem surprised. He retrieved a preloaded syringe, came back, and unceremoniously delivered a jab to David's biceps. David flinched, lips parting in shock, and said, incredulously, "Ow! "He sounded horribly betrayed by the pain. I wondered how long it had been since he'd really been subject to a human nervous system--one he couldn't control, anyway. "What was that?"

  "Wait for it," Lewis said, as he disposed of the hypo in a medical waste container. "Should be about--now. "

  David suddenly relaxed--not quite enough to collapse, but I saw the tension just bleed out of him. His eyes widened and went a little unfocused. "Oh," he said. "Well, that's better. "

  "Welcome to modern medicine. "

  "It's nice," David said, and raised his eyebrows. "It's really nice. " He slid off the bed, landed on his bare feet, and padded over to claim the chair Lewis had been using. Before he sat, he bent over and kissed me, long and sweet and slow, and I savored every bit of it.

  Lewis cleared his throat.

  "Oh, bite me, big man," I said, too full of relief to care. "You're okay, honey?" David's skin felt warm against my hand--human warm, not the banked fire of a Djinn. He gave me a small, reassuring smile. "Really?"

  "I'll be fine," he said, and sat down. "As long as you are. " He turned his head toward Lewis, and his body language altered itself, just a little. Although I couldn't get the subtleties, it seemed to me that he was making an effort to be friendly, but he wanted Lewis to be anywhere but here. "Lewis. What do you know?"

  "About what happened to the Djinn? Nothing. We came out of the black corner, they screamed, they disappeared. "

  David's eyes went briefly blank, and I knew that, like me, he was struggling not to relive that awful sound. There was something about it that just wouldn't die; it was like an endless recorded loop, playing in the back of my mind. The best you could do was keep the sound turned low. "No," he said. "That's not what happened. Jo understands. "

  I did? I didn't. I shook my head.

  "You saw it before," he said. "At the coast. You saw it take me. "

  I had no idea what he meant, and I was about to say so. . . . And then it came to me, like a physical slap. I sat up, staring at him. "No. "

  "Yes," he said. "Exactly that. "

  "But--the Wardens would know. "

  "Not if she didn't wish them to. "

  "Excuse me," Lewis said, a little too loudly. "Somebody want to clue me in?"

  David was the one to say it, which was good, because I wasn't sure I had it in me. "It's the Mother," he said. "It was her scream, echoing through the Djinn. She's been hurt, and she's angry. She gathered the Djinn to her. They're in her power now. "

  I watched Lewis's face go very quickly pale. He put out a hand to steady himself. "You're saying--"

  "I'm saying that the Earth is awake," David said. "At least, I believe she is coming awake.

  The Djinn serve her, and when she calls, they must come. "

  This was, beyond any doubt, the worst thing that could happen. The Earth slept. We liked it that way. Even in sleep she was difficult, but once that vast, slow consciousness was roused . . . we had no idea what she would do, except that it almost certainly would end in extinction for a great many species, and the end of human civilization, at the very least.

  The Earth could not be reasoned with, or even directly communicated with. Not even the Djinn could do that. The only ones that had a chance, even a whisper of a chance, were the three Djinn Oracles.

  Thinking of the Oracles made me think about my daughter, Imara, and I felt a leap of terrible fear. Had she screamed, like the others? Had she lost herself, too?

  "No," David said, and his fingers tightened on mine. "She's all right, Imara is all right.

  We'd know--" His voice trailed off, and I saw a flash of panic in his eyes. We wouldn't know. We were only human now, and our daughter, our child who'd been born half Djinn and raised to become an Oracle . . . she was beyond our grasp now. David normally would have been able to reach out to her, over any distance, but now he was just as trapped in flesh and as clueless as I felt.

  We both turned immediately to Lewis.

  "I don't know about the Oracles. I haven't heard anything," he said. He knew immediately what we were thinking about, and the frown on his face said that he was worried about it, too. "I'll get somebody on it. David, do you know why she summoned the Djinn?"

  "Pain," David said softly. "You heard the scream. That was her pain. "

  It rolled over me in a fresh, overwhelming wave of memory, and I had to concentrate hard to keep myself from shaking with the intensity of the experience. "The black corner," I said. "She's been hurt. That's why she's waking up. We did this. "

  David visibly swallowed, then nodded. Our hands tightened together, the only real comfort we could offer each other. It had been bad enough when we'd been responsible for the pain and death of Djinn. Now we might be responsible for a whole lot more.

  "We'll find a way to get back to ourselves," he said. "We have to find a way. "

  I wished I could believe him. Lewis wasn't looking at me, and I could tell that he was trying not to reveal his own doubts. He pushed away from the bulkhead wall and said, "You asked what we were going to do. I don't see that there's any reason to change the plan. We hit land, the Wardens scatter to handle crisis events. I'd like you two at Warden HQ for the time being. It'll be easier to work with you there, and you can help us with coordination. "

  Coordination.

  If the Earth was really waking up, really angry, really hurt--we'd be coordinating firefighting during a nuclear war. And it was a waste. He was sidelining us, and I didn't like it.

  "We have something more important to do, Lewis. I know you're trying to keep us out of the way, but we
have to try to find a way to get our powers back," I said. "David can't live like this. You know that. We have to see the Oracles. If anybody knows, they do. "

  "I can't give you help. "

  "We don't need any," David said. "This will work, or it won't. But isn't it worth a shot?"

  Lewis thought about it for a moment, then nodded. "Yes," he said. "It's worth a shot. But if it doesn't work, I need you at Warden HQ. Understand?"

  "Understood," I said.

  No way in hell.

  I got used to feeling sealed inside myself over the next two days; if David didn't, he hid it well. We didn't need confinement in hospital beds, so we checked ourselves out while Lewis wasn't looking. It wasn't really our fault, though. Cherise instigated it.

  "No way am I sleeping in this horrible bed the rest of the trip," she declared within a couple of hours of waking up. For Cherise, she looked ragged. For anyone else, she looked magazine-cover ready, but I could spot the subtleties--a smudge under her eyes, a slight pallor under her tan, hair that wasn't quite as bouncy as usual. "And the shower in here sucks. What is this shampoo stuff, anyway? Medical soap? Ugh. No. I am not doing without product. There's a limit. "

  With that, and without anybody giving her permission to vacate the bed, she was up and moving, wrapped in a sheet and searching for her clothes. David helped--more afraid that she'd end up dropping the sheet and he'd see more of Cherise than he intended, I think--and once she'd laid her hands on her shorts, shirt, and shoes, there was no stopping her.

  Which was all fine with me, actually. I was heartily sick of this room. I dressed quickly.

  David was hilariously slow; I wondered how often he'd actually had to pull on his own pants in the last few thousand years. Probably zero times.

  "Sunshine," Cherise declared as we followed her out of the medical area and into the more spacious public area of the ship. The utilitarian carpet and walls were replaced by lusher stuff the higher we went, and by the time we could see daylight streaming through windows, we were in posh territory, with fancy sitting rooms and dark wood paneling. And bars. A lot of bars. A few were even serving.

  Cherise stopped at one and ordered us all margaritas.

  "I don't think this is the time--," I said, but she pressed the glass into my hands firmly.

  "Sweetie, this is exactly the time to drink," she said. "We survived, right? We're heading home? Definitely happy hour, from now until, oh, ever after. " She clinked glasses with me, then David, and led us out a side door onto the deck of the ship. We didn't much feel like celebrating, but it was tough to resist Cher when she was in a mood like this.

  And she was right about taking us outside. It was beautiful.

  Hard to believe that we'd spent the last few weeks--no, months? years?--under such strain, facing such dire circumstances. When we'd sailed out of Miami, we'd done it in the teeth of a monstrous storm.

  Today the sun was warm and kind, the sky a rich, clean-scrubbed blue. The breeze that blew in off the waves was gentle as it glided over my bare arms. The sea was calm; it glittered in diamond-bright swells, a sparkling fabric unrolled as far as the eye could see.

  So beautiful.

  David put his arm around me, and we stood there for a moment in silence, staring out at the vista. Cherise leaned on her forearms on the rail, smiling, turning her face up to the sun with an expression of pure delight.

  "Cher?"

  She turned at the sound of her name, and I glanced back to see Kevin coming at a run from a lower deck, taking the stairs two at a time. My relationship with Kevin--the youngest Warden we had, I believed--was complicated. He was complicated, more than most people I knew: damaged, and dangerous, and unpredictable, but still struggling to find and hold on to that core of goodness that against all odds survived within him. He'd been through a lot, in his--what was it now, nineteen years? He was three years younger than Cherise, which seemed like a lot at their ages. But that didn't stop him from being head over heels in love with her.

  "Hey, Kev," she said, turning from the rail as he jumped to the top of the steps and lunged to grab her in a hug. She was a very small girl, and he was tall and lanky, putting on more muscle all the time. An odd couple, but also oddly appropriate for each other. Cherise's unending optimism was something Kevin needed in his life, which had seen way too much darkness. She was laughing in bright, silvery peals as he spun her around in his arms.

  "Whoa, whoa, easy, don't make me yak!"

  He stopped and let her go, but she didn't go far--just far enough to kiss him, with authority. David raised his eyebrows a little but said nothing. I wondered what he thought about it. I suspected he was just as wary as I was of Kevin, generally.

  "You're okay?" Kevin asked. "Lewis said--"

  "Yeah, look, the Djinn kind of freaked out and there was a thing, but I'm all good now.

  See?" Cherise did a runway twirl for him. "I'm fine. "

  "Yes, you are. "

  She made a purring sound low in her throat and arched against him like a cat. "Don't tease unless you mean it. "

  "Oh, I--" Kevin suddenly stopped in midflirt, blinked, and looked at her with a baffled expression. David and I both turned to look at him. Cherise was just as baffled as Kevin, it seemed.

  "What?" I asked, because it didn't seem like Cherise could even remember the word.