The frown deepened on her face, then cleared. Oh. Oh, right, I get it. That feels weird. Good, but weird.

Weirder than getting hit by lightning?

That felt great!

We were wandering off topic, and poor George was looking more than a little spooked. Well, this will, too. Now, I want you to just let that power move into your hand, your fingers, your palm. Then let it flow from you to George. Dont try to direct it. Just let it flow.

I remembered learning this, in fast, terse lessons from other Wardens who hadnt had the time to teach me all the proper techniques. Being a late bloomer meant Id missed all the classical education, but I had a good working knowledge of down-and-dirty first aid. One of the key things Lewis had taught me was that if you dont know how to do fine control with Earth power, dont try. Theres a certain instinct to it that pulls the power to where its needed most. Bodies want to heal. All we have to do is help them.

Its going in, Cherise said. I couldnt see a thing, but Kevin was watching in fascination, eyes gone wide and unfocused as he followed along in the aetheric. I think its working. I can see it in his blood. Its movingtheres some kind of a block. I think I can

No! both David and I said at the same time. I kept going. No, I told you, let the power work. Dont try to direct it!

From the look on her face, she was trying, but shed already made the mistake, and I could see it in Georges choked gasps. Wielding Earth power is like working with nanotechnologyyou have to be able to make controlled, very slight adjustments at a microscopic level. Its not brute force.

Cherise cried out, and George arched his back. His eyes rolled back in his head. I tore it! she yelled frantically. I tore something, its all bleeding out

Kevin reached out and added his hand on top of Chers, and even as magically blinded as I was, I felt the power flooding out of him. His eyes sparked and changed, and Georges labored breathing suddenly and dramatically eased.

Oh, Cherise said, in a very small voice. Like that. I see.

Kevin sat back, staring at her with those glittering, powerful eyes, and he said, Do you? Because you almost killed this guy because you were stupid. She told you not to do that. You blew out an artery, for Gods sake!

Cherise went white, clearly horrified and shocked as Kevin turned on her. It wasnt him, I realized; it was the fact that with Davids power, he was seeing way too much. He saw Cherises secret delight in having power, finallysomething that as a Warden hed probably never have picked up, but it reminded him of someone else.

It reminded him of his stepmother, I realized. Yvette. Hed seen her turn into a predatory monster, driven by that same kind of excitement and ambition. What he saw in Cherise was the opposite of Yvette Prentiss . . . a woman without any of that power, without any desire to have it or use it.

He was hating her right now, and she could tell.

Hey, I said, and put my hands on their shoulders. Good work. He seems better. George, are you feeling better?

He nodded, but he looked scared. Well, Id have been right there with him, if Id had two amateur psychic surgeons rummaging around in my innards. Who the hell are you people? You with the government? He was feeling better, because I heard suspicion kick in.

In a way, I said. Kevin, hows the patch? Solid?

Itll hold, he said. He had a blocked artery. Its clear now. Hell be okay.

Kev, Cher said anxiously. He stood up and walked away, head down, hands in his pockets. Im sorry! I didnt mean to do it!

Give him a minute, I said. Cher, hes used to the other you. The one without powers. Hes never trusted other Wardens, not any of us, not deep down. He hates feeling that way about you, too. Understand?

She didnt, really, but she blinked back tears and acted like she did. We got Mr. Bassey on his feet, had him walk around a little, and then put him back in his car. Mindy was extremely excited by this, and obviously protective; she stood with her stubby little legs on his and growled at us through the window.

Do you have someplace safe to go? I asked George, as he started up his car. He looked at me like I might have been completely insane.

Im going to the church, he said. Devils walking the streets, and I dont know what you people are. Church is the only place Ill feel safe.

I nodded. Be safe.

He put aside his suspicion long enough to say, God bless you all.

Mindy barked.

As his car pulled away, I heard Whitneys pained voice on the radio say, Now can we leave? Sweet Mother Moses, you people are more sentimental than my grand-mother into her third bottle of sipping whiskey!

Where does she come up with this stuff? I asked David.

He shrugged. I dont even know why shes a Djinn, he said. Its part of her charm.

The excitement of having saved one lifewell, two, if you counted Mindysmade me feel pretty good about things for a while, but my impulse to do-gooding was very firmly brought under control by Whitney, who informed us in cold, final tones that we would not stop until we got where we were going.

The next time I tried to get her to stop for a roadside rescue, she put me out like the proverbial light, and I had just enough time to think, You Southern-fried bitch . . . and I was gone.

For a long time.

Jo?

Then somebody was shaking me. I fought my way up out of what felt like the deepest, most dreamless rest Id ever had, and for a long second after opening my eyes I felt . . . good. Happy, even. At peace, because the face I was looking into was Davids.

He shook me harder. Jo, wake up! The urgency in his voice made me blink and scramble for a better grasp of things around me.

We were no longer in the Mustang. I didnt even see the Mustang anywhere. I was propped against a brick wall, sitting on a sidewalk, facing a street. It was eerily quiet hereone might even say dead, because I didnt see a single sign of life. Not a bird flitting overhead, not an insect moving, not a single person in a car, window, or park. I looked up and down. It was a Norman Rockwell kind of street, clean and neata business district, with quaint little shops and cafes.

All deserted.

Overhead, the sky was gray, a kind of thick, featureless gray that seemed wrong even for an overcast. As I stared at it, I realized that it looked like smoke behind glass.

Were in Seacasket, I said. Home of the Fire Oracle.

Theres nothing here still alive, David said. We dont know why. We havent found any bodiesnot even of insects. Nothing. Theyre just . . . gone.

That was unsettling. The Fire Oracle wasnt exactly my BFF, but hed been a lot less antagonistic than the Air Oracle the times I had met him. Not anywhere close to human, but willing to acknowledge us. Seacasket was an unnaturally perfect sort of town, always had been; I thought it was some kind of side effect of the presence of the Oracle. Things had just always seemed a little too much in their place.

Wheres Cherise? Kevin? I looked around; I couldnt see them, either. Is the Djinn still with us?

He went with them, David said. I stayed with you.

Which didnt answer my question. I grabbed his hand and pulled myself up to my feet. I still felt sticky, hot, caked with sweat and coated in powdered concrete dust from our mall adventure. My hair was lank around my face, and if I could have wished for paradise, it would have been a spa whirlpool tub, and a skin treatment.

Later.

Where did they go?

For answer, he nodded down the street. I looked and saw nothing, but I headed in that direction while David quickly caught up. It felt good to walk; my legs had been out of practice, with all the driving. And suddenly, I felt another need, a really practical one. I stopped, feeling stupid, and said, Bathroom?