She didnt like it, but I think she saw that there was no way I could carry her myself, physically or with any kind of magical power. If I pulled power from the world around me again, itd be a case of diminishing returns and a harder crash once it was over. I couldnt afford it.

Not knowing that this was far from the end.

I found the Djinn easily enough; hed left a lighted trail of orange light through the trees. He hadnt gone too far in, but far enough that I lost sight of the road and the wrecked motel. In here, among the pines, things were hushed. The air smelled sweet and heavy, crisp with the smell of the needles.

Untouched.

The Djinn had dug a gravesix feet deep, wider than neededbeneath a particularly impressive branching tree. Kevins body lay wrapped in a simple white sheet from the motel, and he no longer looked like the boy Id known, or the man Id wished hed had a chance to become. He looked . . . empty, rendered pale and sexless by the shroud. I wasnt sure I wanted Cherise to see him like this, but Id promised.

Ill get him in, I said. Go get Cherise and the kid. Dont let her walk yet.

The Djinn nodded and misted away. I stood there looking at Kevin for a moment, then hopped down into the damp hole in the earth, reached up, and rippled the ground to move him toward me and onto a hardened cushion of air. I floated him down into my arms, and lowered him the last bit on my own. He still felt heavy. Somehow, Id expected him to be lighter now.

I leaned over and kissed his lips gently. Im so sorry, I said. Find peace, Kevin. Ive never known anybody who needed it more, and deserved it more.

That didnt seem to be enough, but I couldnt think of anything else to say.

I levitated myself up on a heated column of rising air and stepped off at ground level, just in time to see the Djinn arrive back at a run with Cherise and the boy in his arms. They looked like toys, the casual way he balanced them, but I knew he wouldnt drop them. No chance.

He looked around, then formed a plain wooden chair that was the same color and texture as the trees around us. Fallen wood, probably, reshaped for the purpose. He lowered her into it and came to stand next to me.

He did a lot of things he probably regretted, David said. But he tried to do good. That counts.

He died trying to save us, I said. That counts for everything.

We linked hands. It didnt feel like David, but that didnt matter right now. I just wanted to feel a touch, anyones touch, to remind me I wasnt all alone in this. I felt a breath of relief pass over me that made me feel a little weak. I wish you were with me, I whispered, deep inside.

And I heard his whisper back, along that golden cord that bound us on the aetheric plane. I am with you, he said. Always.

Together, we filled in the hole. Apart from the singing of birds in the trees, the busy rustle of animals carrying on their lives, there wasnt any sound. When I looked at Cherise, she was silently crying. The boy was staring at us in confusion, about to break into wails of disapproval for all this craziness, but not sure if he should.

We smoothed the dirt on top of Kevins grave, and I sent a pulse through the Earth, bidding the seeds to grow. Grass and flowers, pushing up green and fresh.

You deserved better, Kevin, I said. You always deserved better than what you got, and Im sorry.

The Djinn said something, after thatsomething in warm, liquid syllables, lyrical and lovely that rose and fell in emotional arcs of poetry. When he was done, he bowed his head.

That was beautiful, Cherise said, even though I knew she hadnt understood it any more than I had.

Its our prayer for the dead, said Davids voice. Given to those who fall in battle.

When he said our, I sensed that he didnt mean the Djinn. He meant the human hed once been, living in that long-ago time.

I squeezed his hand. It is beautiful, I said. Promise me youll use it for me if it comes to that.

No, he said. I wont. Because I wont be here to do it if youre gone.

We stayed a while longer, but the air was getting cool, and we had miles to go.

The Djinn carried Cherise back to the waiting Mustang, which had only suffered a few scratches and dings out in the parking lot during the general destruction. Good. Id destroyed way too many automotive works of art in my time. I didnt want to leave the Boss behind, too.

I looked back at the place where Kevin Prentiss had died until it fell away in the rear window, just another wide spot in the road. Nothing special.

It was special now. It always would be, for me.

I waited for the tears, but they stayed where they were, simmering, angry, hungry.

Floor it, I said to the Djinn, and to David through him. I want to see our daughter.

He didnt respond, but the Mustang leaped up to a whole new level of fast.

Chapter Eight

Weirdly enough, nothing else was happening in Missouri, or in Oklahoma as we dropped down toward our Arizona destination. Open roads, lots of traffic. Some towns still had power and some sense of normalcy, includingimprobablyOklahoma City.

People were actually going to work.

I supposed that was a good sign; life had to go on, until it became impossible. It was just . . . strange.

I rose up into the aetheric and found a powerful bunch of Wardens at workEarth, Fire, and Weather all locked in a tight- knit unit, constantly repelling attacks on any number of levels. They were stretched thin, but coping. I soared up higher into the spirit world, looking at the patterns of lights and color, shadows and twisted representations of the physical world.

Lewis had figured it out. Hed teamed up his people in those triangular bases of power, positioning them at strategic locations. I looked back toward the east, where the chaos had been the worst, and it was dying down. For now, the Wardens were handling it, even against all the odds.

It wasnt a battle we could win, but we could fight to a standstillfor a while.

I spotted Lewis on the aetheric. Id expected him to be in Seattle, but he was a brilliant, incandescent blaze of power located in Nevada right now. I couldnt imagine what had drawn him there, but it was unmistakably him. And he was still moving, though not as quickly as I was, given the jet-powered chariot skills of the Mustang.

He was going wherever the battle was the fiercest, I thought. As he should.

I cut my grip on the aetheric and dropped back into my body with that familiar, faintly disorienting jolt, then pulled out my cell phone and checked it. The grid was back up, and I speed-dialed Lewis.

No answer. I wanted to tell him about Kevin, but this wasnt something that would be good for voice mail. Id wait until I could tell him on the phone, or face to face. The news wasnt going to get worse, or better, with time.

I was just hanging up when the phone rang, startling me into a frantic juggling act. When Id renewed my grip on it, I accepted the call and held the phone to my ear.

Piercing shrieks of static. I yanked the phone away again, no doubt making one of those pained faces, and then carefully eased it back as the feedback diminished into a thick net of noise. The screen said PRIVATE CALLER. I had no idea who it was.

And then I did.

It was me. My voice. And it said, You need to stop. Stop now.

I took the phone away and looked at it again. Yep, there was a call. Private Caller. And it was my voice.

Saying, again, Are you listening to me? Dont come here!

Excuse me, who am I talking to? I asked, which was a pretty reasonable question at the moment, if a bit existential. This took talking to myself to a whole new level of weird. Then, belatedly, I got it. Imara? My Djinn daughter had been a virtual clone, down to the voice, although shed always somehow sounded more sassy to me. Maybe because I wasnt used to being on the receiving end of the sass. Imara, is that you?