Ill Wind - Page 4/29

I did. "Paul?"

He understood the question before I had to ask it. "I'm not turning you in, babe. I don't exactly come from a family history of ratting out."

That said, he hung up. I clutched the phone for a few seconds, trying to decide, but really, I didn't have a choice. Paul's suggestions were just polite orders.

I urged the Mustang up another notch on the speeding-fine scale and hauled ass for Albany.

I met Paul when I was eighteen, at my official intake meeting for the Wardens.

It was scheduled at a Holiday Inn outside of Sarasota. I had directions and an appointed time to appear, all on official Warden stationery, and I spent most of the drive wiping sweat from my palms and wishing I could keep on driving and disappear. But the Wardens had made it crystal clear that my presence was required, not requested. They'd also mentioned that they could not only make my life miserable, but if they wanted to, they could put a real unhappy ending on it, as well.

So I walked into the modest little hotel and looked over the meeting-room signs on the board, CULLIGAN COMPANY BOARD MEETING. Nope. LADIES ASSOCIATION OF ROSE GROWERS Probably not. METEOROLOGICAL RESEARCH INSTITUTE. That looked like the right one. I tugged down my skirt one more time, wished I'd worn something businesslike and conservative, and walked down what felt like the Last Mile. The door was closed. I knocked.

That was the first time I met Paul. He made an impression. He opened the door, and for a frozen second, all I could think of was Oh, my God, he's gorgeous, and he made it that much worse by letting his eyes go wider and giving me that quick, comprehensive X-ray scan men are so good at delivering. He was six feet tall, olive skinned, with dark hair and designer stubble. Body by some very expensive personal trainer, or incredibly good genetics.

"Joanne Baldwin?" he asked, still standing in the doorway. I nodded. "You're late."

His voice didn't match his body; it was low, gravelly, rough. But then again, maybe it did match, because it vibrated in parts of me that generally don't react to voices. I swallowed hard and hoped my legs weren't shaking too badly, and I followed him into the room.

Of the seven people there, Paul was definitely the standout for looks, but that didn't mean anything; I felt potential power zip up and down my spine the minute I stepped inside. Ugly or beautiful, any one of these people could lay waste to entire countries.

The man sitting at the head of the long table stood up. He was older and blank faced, with gray eyes that looked as warm as polished marble. I didn't know it then, but I was meeting the man in charge of the weather for the entire continental United States, a man who did not generally concern himself with assessing the fitness of some little girl from down in Florida.

"Joanne Baldwin," he said. It was by way of a formal introduction, and I nodded and fought an impulse to curtsy, which would have been disastrous in the miniskirt anyway. "My name is Martin Oliver. You've just met Paul Giancarlo-" A nod from the stud muffin. "Let me introduce the rest of the panel."

It was a who's who of People Who Mattered. State Wardens from Texas, Arkansas, Montana. Marion Bearheart, an American Indian woman with kind eyes and an aura powerful enough to shatter glass . . . and the State Warden for Florida, Bob Biringanine. Bob was a short Irish-looking fellow with a perpetual blush, feathery white hair, and steel-blue eyes. He didn't like me. I could sense it at his first uninterested glance.

"Sit," Martin Oliver invited me, and demonstrated the process. I carefully lowered myself into a squeaky black chair. Everybody stared at me for a few seconds. "Coffee?"

"No thanks," I managed. "Look, I'm not really sure why-"

"You're here because either you need to be accepted into the Program, or you need to have your powers blunted," Bob said. "Somebody like you is too dangerous to leave running around wild."

Martin's cold gray eyes flicked at him, but Bob didn't seem to feel the impact. I tried to think of something to say. Nothing volunteered. Bob-Bad Bob, I later learned he was called-shuffled papers and found something that apparently interested him. I couldn't see what it was.

"There was a storm," he said. "One year ago. You vectored it around your house."

Oh. That. I hadn't thought anybody noticed. My lips were dry again, and so was my mouth. "I had to," I said. My voice sounded childish and soft. Bad Bob's gaze pinned me like I was an insect.

"Had to?" he repeated, and traded looks with a couple of the others. "Weeping Christ, girl, do you understand what you did? Your interference added force to the storm. What would just have caused minor damage to your house ended up destroying six others. Because of you. You lack judgment."

I hadn't known that. I thought-I thought I'd done the right thing. Carefully. Precisely. The idea that I'd made things worse elsewhere was a completely new one.

"That's a little harsh," said Marion Bearheart. She leaned back in her chair and studied me. "We've all screwed the pooch from time to time, Bob. You know that. Just last year, Paul dumped seventeen inches of rain on a floodplain when he was supposed to produce a summer shower. How many houses did you wash away, Paul?"

"Five," Paul grunted. "Thanks for bringing that up as often as possible."

Bad Bob ignored him, staring straight at Marion. "Paul didn't get anybody killed."

My heart froze up. There was silence around the table. Bob shuffled papers and came up with a newspaper clipping. "Dead in the wreckage of the house were Liza Gutierrez, twenty-nine, and Luis Gutierrez, thirty-one. Three children between the ages of nine and two years escaped with the help of neighbors before the home collapsed."

It was like listening to someone reading my own obituary. I tried to swallow. Couldn't. Looked down at faux woodgrain and blinked back tears. I didn't know I didn't know I didn't know. The mantra of the helpless.

And then, a low gravelly voice. "Bullshit." I looked up to see Paul staring at Bob. "Come on, Bob, she deflected the storm, sure, and she didn't take the force vectors and wind speed into account, but it still wasn't a bad job. But then, you didn't recheck for changing conditions before you started lowering the ceiling up in the mesosphere. You want to sling some blame, I think you ought to get a little on you, too. And for God's sake, people die. Without us, the whole Atlantic seaboard would be a pile of corpses- you know that as well as anybody. Sometimes you can't save everybody. Sometimes you can't even save yourself. You know that. You of all people."

"Paul," Martin Oliver said quietly. "Enough."

Paul shut up. So did Bad Bob, who closed the folder. Martin Oliver opened his own.

"Joanne, maybe what we should be talking about is a great deal more basic. Do you want to be a Warden? It's not an easy life, and it's not especially rewarding. You'll never have fame, and even though you'll save a lot of lives, you'll never receive gratitude or recognition. You'll need to go through another six years of training, minimum, before you're trusted as a Staff Warden." His gray eyes studied me with absolute impartiality. "Some people don't have the temperament for it. I understand that you're prone to act first and think later."

I licked my lips. "Sometimes."

"Under what circumstances would you believe it was permissible to use the kind of powers you've been given? To, for instance, get rid of a violent storm?"

"To-save lives?" Nobody had told me there was going to be a test. Dammit.

Martin exchanged a look with Bad Bob. "What about saving property?"

"Um . . . no."

"No?" Martin's eyebrows levitated, making his gray eyes wider. "Is there no time when saving property might be preferable to saving lives?"

My heart was beating too fast; it was hurting my chest. I could hardly swallow for the lump in my throat. "No. I don't think so."

"What if the property were, say, a nuclear reactor whose destruction might result in the deaths of thousands more?"

Oh. I hadn't thought of that one.

"What if the property were the central distribution center for food in a country full of starving people? Would you save the property, or the lives, if by saving lives you starved even more?"

"I don't know," I whispered. My hands were shaking. I made them into fists when Bad Bob's laugh sawed the air.

"She doesn't know. Well, that's typical. This is what we end up with these days, a bunch of kids raised on free lunches who never had to make a decision in their lives more important than what TV show to watch. You want to trust her with the power of life and death?" He snorted and shoved my folder into the center of the table. "I've heard enough."

"Wait!" I blurted. "I'm sorry. I didn't understand."

Marion Bearheart looked at me from the other side of the table, her warm brown eyes full of compassion. "And do you understand now, Joanne?"

"Sure," I lied. "I'd save the power plant. And- and the food."

Silence around the table. Bad Bob stood up. Nobody argued with him; nobody moved so much as a muscle as he raised his hands at shoulder level.

A cloud started forming above our heads. Just mist at first, clinging to the ceiling like fog, and then getting denser, taking on form and shape. I felt humidity sucking up into that thing, fueling power.

"Hey-," I said. "Um-"

Power leaped through the air, jumping from each one of the Wardens in the room and into that cloud. It was feeding on them, drawing energy. It was . . . It was . . .

. . . alive.

Bad Bob watched me with those eerie, cold eyes. "Better do something," he advised. "Don't know how long it's going to be content to just sit there."

"Do what?" I yelped. I didn't remember standing, but I was out of my chair, backing away. The power in that room-the uncontrolled, unfocused menace- the sense that the cloud overhead was thinking-

I felt it click in on me as if a channel had opened, and something hot and powerful tore out of the cloud at me. I didn't have time to think, to do anything but just react.

I reached up into the cloud and ripped it apart. No finesse to it, no control, just sheer raw power- and power that got loose, manifested in arcing static electricity from every metal surface. Glass shattered. The pitcher of water on the table hissed into steam.

I ducked into a crouch in the corner until it was all over, and the room was clear and silent.

Very, very silent.

I looked up and saw them all still sitting there, hands on the table. Nobody had moved an inch. Marion was the first to get up; she walked over to a covered cart and took out a thick beach towel, and went about the business of mopping up beads of water from the conference table. Somebody else- probably a Fire Warden-brought the lights back online. Except for a couple of burn marks around the power outlets, it all looked normal enough.

Bad Bob sat back down in his chair, slumped at ease, and propped his chin on his fist. "I rest my case," he said. "She's a menace."

"I agree," said the snippy-looking librarian type from Arkansas. "I've rarely seen anything so completely uncontrolled."

Martin Oliver shook his head. "She has plenty of power. You know how rare it is to find that."

They went around the table, each one putting in a comment about my general worthlessness or worthiness. Marion Bearheart voted for me. So did two others.

It came down to Paul Giancarlo, who stood and walked over to me and offered me a hand up. He kept holding my hand until he was sure I wasn't going to collapse into a faint on the floor.

"You know what this is?" he asked. "What it is we're deciding here?"

"Whether or not to let me into the Wardens," I said.

He shook his head, very kindly. "Whether or not to let you live. If I say you can't be trained, you go into Marion's keeping, and she and her people try to take away your powers without killing you. Sometimes it works. Sometimes . . . not so well."

If he was hoping to scare me, he'd succeeded brilliantly. I wanted to say something, but I honestly had no idea what to try. Everything I'd done so far was wrong. Maybe keeping my mouth shut was the best thing I could do.

He finally smiled. "Not going to beg, are you?"

I shook my head.

"That's something," he said, and turned around to Martin Oliver. "I'll take her on. She can't cut it, it's my responsibility. But I think she's going to be a damn good Warden someday."

Martin winced. "Not quite yet, though."

"Yeah, well. Who is, at eighteen?"

"You were," Martin said. "I was."

Paul shrugged. "We're fuckin' prodigies, Marty. And neither one of us ever had half the power this girl does coming into it."

"That's what I'm afraid of," Bad Bob said. "That's exactly what I'm afraid of."

It was four to three to make me a Warden.

Two hours later, I made it to Albany. Not a bad town, Albany-nice, historic, a little run-down but still the kind of kid-and-dog place that people boast about. Probably smaller than the residents preferred it be, considering it was the state capital and all. I'd hit it in pretty season-tulips bloomed in shocking rows of red and yellow, like velvet rings of fire rippling in the wind around trees and home gardens. I passed through the industrial area near Erie Canal, past narrow brownstones with soot-dark stoops, and turned toward the southend-up Hamilton toward the part of town called-appropriately-the Mansions.

Paul lived in a house that had to cost at least a cool quarter million . . . with spacious lawn, gracious styling, and a lacy white gazebo in the back overlooking a rose garden. I pulled into the drive and parked the Mustang, let the engine rumble to a stop, and took a little peek into Oversight.

I almost wished I hadn't. Paul's house was a castle in the aetheric, I'm talking castle here, with battlements and flags and arrow slits. Not too surprising, since Paul had always been a knight-in the warlike sense, the old-fashioned, bloody, mace-and-sword kind. And his Sector was a fiefdom. Paul's world was heavy on the black and white. Bad news for Team Me, whose colors these days were gray and grayer.

I dropped back into tulips and Doric columns on the portico as the front door opened. Paul walked out to meet me. However knightly he might have looked in Oversight, in the real world, Paul was pure Italian Stallion . . . strong, muscular, with bone structure that bordered on godlike. He still had designer stubble, except I'd long ago learned it was really just a permanent five-o'clock shadow. Paul had turned forty a couple of years ago, but it hadn't slowed him down any, and damn, he was still gorgeous.

Also unfortunately mad as hell at me, at the moment.

"Outta the car," he said, and jerked a thumb at me.

I rolled down the window with the hand crank. "Not yet."

He glowered. "Why the fuck not? You don't trust me?"

"Check out the door," I said. The marks of the lightning strike had certainly not done wonders for Delilah's paint job. "C'mon, somebody tried to fry me in my Stuart Weitzmans the last time I got out. I'm not falling for it twice."

Some of Paul's anger melted as he looked at the evidence. But, being Paul, he didn't express any shock or sympathy or ask any touchy-feely questions, either. He said, "You're scared."

"No shit. You'd be scared, too."

"What? You don't think I could defuse a little lightning bolt?" he asked.

"Let's just say I'd rather you had four rubber tires between you and it when you give it a shot. C'mon, Paul, get in and we'll talk. Comfy vinyl seats-"

He grunted. "You know as well as I do that rubber tires won't do a damn thing against half a million amps."

"No, but my car has a steel body. It won't melt like that plastic POS you're driving over there." I jerked my chin at his late-model Porsche.

He looked wounded. "Don't badmouth Christine. She could give you a five-second start and still blow your doors off." He let the smile come out, finally, and I felt it warm me like a bonfire. I'd lost count of the times we'd debated cars, discussed the finer points of auto repair, trash-talked about who'd win the fantasy drag race. "Jeez, Jo, it's good to see you. In spite of every little damn thing. Listen, come inside. I promise you'll be safe."

"No offense, Paul, but I can't exactly trust you, can I? You're a little too far up in the food chain not to know the orders are to detain me for questioning."

"Sure, I got the memo," he said. "I'm willing to hear your side of it."

"You'd be the only one."

"Not the only one. You may think you're on your own, kid, but you don't have to be. You've got friends. Now's the time to count on them. Have a little faith in the system."

I wanted to-dear God I wanted to-and if it were just a matter of a death and some questions, that would be one thing. The Demon Mark was something else entirely.

"Okay, if Muhammad won't come to the mountain, whatever," he said. "Open up."

I popped open the passenger door. He walked around the car and got in; the springs shuddered at the addition of his weight. Paul, not a small guy, looked uncomfortable squeezed into the shotgun seat, and we fiddled with adjustments until he had circulation, if not leg room.

The smell that filled the car was warm, sexy, and familiar. I sniffed closer to him and raised my eyebrows. Paul's face reddened. "Oh, for Christ's sake, it's just a little aftershave, okay? I got a date for lunch."