Kevin nodded, not looking overly concerned one way or the other. Comforting. Cherise, at least, frowned and looked cutely annoyed, but she finally agreed.
Me, I was just hoping that wherever our newfound chauffeur was taking us had a bathroom, because I was in need. Badly. And my throat was parched, too.
It only took another five minutes or so after that for our driver to pull off the freeway, expertly whip in and out of traffic (which he could do with impunity, being Djinn and therefore beyond the reach of human law enforcement), and pull to a stop in front of a ...
A mall.
He shut off the engine and sat there like a marble statue. David and I exchanged looks. I finally said, "Uh, hello? Instructions? Are we supposed to go shopping?"
His head turned. Well, it was more of an Exorcist twist, really--like it was on a swivel, not connected to the rest of his body. Creepy.
Also creepy were his eyes, which continued to blaze an unearthly fire in a color that defied description.
"Out," he said. Just that. And the passenger-side door flung itself open, David's seat belt snapped back, and I felt a supernatural shove that sent me stumbling out onto the pavement. David collided with me a second later, and we steadied ourselves as the Mustang's door slammed shut again.
Cherise and Kevin goggled at us from the backseat. Cherise tried the door. Locked. She held up her hands in defeat and mouthed, Sorry!
That was fine. The last thing I wanted was for Cherise to try her hand at slinging some power around. It wouldn't end well for anyone concerned. She was so far overmatched right now that the Djinn in that car wouldn't even have left a smoke trail in destroying her. Not that she didn't have the potential inside of her--she did, in spades--but she had zero ability to channel and control it. She'd be more likely to blow herself, the mall, and whatever major metropolitan area we were in off the face of the Earth instead.
"Right," I said, and steadied myself on my cramping legs. "I guess we go in?"
"Seems like it," David said, and took my hand. He smiled. "Remember the first time you took me to a mall?"
"Yeah, that ended well. I almost got suffocated."
"And you drove off and left me behind," he said. "Don't try it again."
"Not a chance."
We looked at the glass doors of the entrance like it was the gates of Hell, and after a second to gather our composure--well, I was gathering mine, at least--we moved forward and into the mall.
I don't know what I expected to happen--maybe that we'd be transported to some other, intimidating supernatural place?--but on the other side of the doors was a busy food court, full of cheap tables and flashing neon and the smells of a dozen different kinds of food.
Families with crying kids in tow. Teens traveling in packs, for whom nothing existed outside of their own insulated circle of friends. Seniors in walking shoes making the rounds. It was a bustling indoor community, with snacks and shopping bags and a life of its own.
"I love a good mall," I said to David, "but I really have no idea what we're supposed to do here. I mean, I could use a pair of shoes... ."
"If you're going to shop, you'd better get Cherise, or she'll kill you," he pointed out. "But I think we're supposed to do something else."
"Well, it'd be nice if someone gave us a sign...."
At the far end of the food court was the neon- lit entrance to a multiplex theater. The NOW SHOWING signs were giant TV screens, which I supposed was easier than the old stick-up letters.
One of them was flashing text in the biggest possible letters. It said ENTER HERE.
I cleared my throat and pointed. "Would you call that a sign?"
The letters immediately changed to read ENTER NOW OR DIE.
"I'd say so," David said. "And not a welcome-to-the-neighborhood sign, either."
Didn't seem so. I tried to control the twisting of my stomach as we moved off toward the theater, threading past baby strollers and people just standing in the way. When we were still twenty feet away, the lettering changed again.
It said, in red flashing letters, FASTER.
"Crap," I said, and dropped David's hand to race him to the entrance. That drew stares. I wondered why nobody could see the sign, but then decided that the Oracle wanted it that way. It was meant for us. And it was meant to scare us.
It was working.
I plunged through the door under the flashing sign, just a step ahead of David, and stumbled into ... fog. White, featureless fog, cool and damp and cloying on my skin. It felt thick and heavy and alive, pressing down on me as I stumbled to a stop, unable to see anything in the thick white mist.
I reached back and flailed for David's hand.
He wasn't there.
I spun around and scissored my arms wildly, trying to find him, sure he had to be right there ...but he wasn't. He was nowhere within reach. "David!" I shouted. "David, can you hear me?"
Nothing. It felt as if my words were swallowed up, as if the fog around me was so thick and heavy it was suffocating sound. It was like drowning in a cloud, and my breath came faster as the feeling of claustrophobia intensified. I held out my hands and took a step, hoping for something--anything--to tell me where I was. This was worse than being blind, somehow. It felt like I should be able to see, and my eyes constantly strained, trying to focus on nothing.
"Hey!" I yelled. "Oracle? You wanted me, here I am!"
The mist around me suddenly thickened, choking me, trapping me in a gelatinous blanket, and I struggled to get a breath that didn't feel like a ball was being shoved down my throat.
A shape appeared out of the mist--but only a shape. A shadow, like glass filled with the same mist that surrounded me. No features, no face, nothing but a chilly kind of menace.
It was terrifying, and I realized that I was seconds away from dying if I couldn't get the Air Oracle to stop tormenting me.
I did the only thing I could.
I gave up.
I stopped struggling, stopped trying to choke in a breath, and relaxed. The mist supported me, flowing like syrup through my clothes, along my skin, caressing me in intimate and cold ways that felt repulsively invasive.
I let it happen.
The pressure of mist inside my lungs let up, and I whooped in a breath of air just as the edge of my vision started to go dark and sparkly from oxygen deprivation.
Human.
It wasn't a voice, exactly, or a thought either. It was more of a vibration that didn't register in my ears, but in my flesh. As if the Oracle was speaking through my bones.
It hurt.
I gasped, and suddenly the mist holding me up let go, dropping me to my hands and knees on the featureless white floor--except that it still felt like more insubstantial fog. I had the dizzying sensation that I was standing on a cloud, that only the Oracle's whim kept me from hurtling through the vapor tens of thousands of feet down to my death... Weak, the thought vibration came, this time rich with overtones of contempt. Useless. As I thought.
I coughed and wiped my mouth with the back of my hand. I tasted blood, but it seemed to be confined to my throat. "The Mother's waking up," I said. "Isn't she?"
No answer. The ghostly form of the Air Oracle wavered, changing in fluid, subtle ways.
"You don't want her to wake up," I said, filling in the blanks. "It will take away all your power.
All your individuality." The Oracles weren't necessary if Mother Earth, the consciousness of the planet itself, took direct command of her Djinn. They'd be blown out of existence, burned away--or reduced to Djinn, no more or less. The Air Oracle, of all three that I'd met, was by far the most haughty and power- mad. No wonder it had taken action. "Look, it's not in the interest of the Wardens or humanity for her to wake up, either. Or even the Djinn. They lose their individuality to her, their ability to think for themselves. They don't want that. Not even the Old Djinn."
No answer. The Air Oracle just hovered.
"David and I both lost our powers," I said. "If you help us get them back I may be able to stop this. I can try, at least. The Wardens need every bit of help they can get."
You ask a favor, came the reply, in slow, measured throbs through my body.
"No. I'm asking you to act in your own interests," I said. "It's in your interest to put back what I lost, and restore David's powers."
That was risky. The Air Oracle had never been on the side of humanity. If anything, it was on its own side, only paying lip service to the other Oracles. There were a few times when it had intervened, but not many, and never from altruistic motives.
Mercenary little sexless bastard.
The Air Oracle was silent. I hated dealing with eternal beings. No sense of urgency. "At least restore David's powers," I said. "He is a Conduit. He can reach the Mother. Maybe he can stop her."
No, the Oracle said immediately, and the single word, the concept, was rich with contempt. He cannot. It is a waste of energy.
Great. David hadn't made a fan out of this Oracle, any more than I had.
Once humans are gone, the Mother will release us, the Oracle continued, with cold and inexorable logic. The world will be ours. As it should be.
I swallowed hard. "If you really believed that, why bring us here?"
There were no features on that misty face, but I had the impression of a shark's smile, something hungry and merciless. To be sure you don't stop it.
The mist closed in, and this time, it wasn't just suffocating, it was crushing.
I had time to gasp in one inadequate breath before the weight slammed into me from back and front, squeezing. When I opened my mouth, the mist jammed itself in, choking me.
No! I'm a Weather Warden! This can't happen!
But it was happening, no matter how much I wanted to deny it. I had no power to fight an Oracle, no tricks, nothing but the sheer panicked will to live.
And that wasn't enough. Not here.
I felt hot sparks of pain through my body as muscles strained, joints began to fail, bones bent. It was going to smash me flat and leave me a leaking carcass, and there was nothing I could do to stop it... .
All of a sudden, a hurricane wind whipped through the mist, cold and clear and edged with ice. It tattered the forces holding me, revealing the Air Oracle looming over me in its faceless, sexless menace. Suddenly, I could breathe. I dropped to my hands and knees, gasping in ragged gulps, and looked around to see what the hell had just happened.
Oh crap.
Cherise stood there, tiny and cute in her flirty dress and perfect tan. She was showing teeth. It wasn't a smile. Maybe it had started out being a confident grin, but as the Air Oracle focused its attention on her instead of me, it became more of a demented, if terrified, snarl. Her blond hair was streaming in the wind, and as I watched, she extended a hand out toward the Air Oracle and pushed force at it.
"No!" I yelled, and dropped flat on the white, slightly spongy floor, pressing myself as low as I could go. Cherise's attack rolled over me, and even as small a target as I'd made, I felt it freeze my back as it glanced over me.
Cold air is heavy, and Cherise wielded it like a bat, slamming it into the fragile Air Oracle and scoring a home run. The Air Oracle broke apart into streams of white-hot energy, and its scream echoed through my bones with such force I actually thought something would break inside me.
"Cher, stop!" I screamed. "You can't win this! Stop!"
"Shut up," she said, and grabbed me by the ankle with both small hands as she backpedaled through featureless white space. "What the hell did you get me into this time? Stop kicking!"
"Stop pulling me like a toy pony!" She let go, and I rolled up to my knees and bounced to my feet, driven by adrenaline and sheer terror. "We have to leave. Right now."
"Yeah, about that, how?"
I made a helpless flailing motion with my hands, frustrated beyond any measure. "Just--I don't know--do it!
Gah! This is not the time for on-the-job training, because that Oracle is going to be--"
Really pissed, I was going to say, but honestly, that fell far short of what was happening about fifteen feet away, where the Air Oracle was reforming in a black, roiling cloud that glittered with icy edges. It was lit from within by flashes like swallowed lightning, and even as paranormally blind as I was right now to subtle forces, I could feel the menace in the air.
It was going to kill us really, really dead, and it wasn't going to screw around doing it.
"Out!" I yelled, and grabbed Cherise's hand. "Think about the mall!"
Cherise said, in a plaintive little voice, "But I don't know what's in this mall... ."
Oh fuck, we were going to die.
The Air Oracle roared toward us, and the mist closed in, and hope vanished with the open space. I felt Cherise's hand in mine but I could no longer see her, couldn't see anything but white, as if the mist had entered my eyeballs and filled them up.
Cherise let out a shriek of pure, full-throated terror, and suddenly we were falling through the floor, as if those imagined white clouds had given way. Ten thousand feet to the killing ground ...... but we landed on carpet in about six inches, just enough to jolt and send us both staggering a couple of steps. Mist curled off of both of us in thick, milky wisps, and as Cherise dropped my hands and frantically batted at her clothes, it leaked out in streams, sliding down her legs to pool on the carpet and disappear.
"Oh my God, that is creepy!" she said. "Is it in my hair? Tell me it's not in my hair!"
I couldn't, because it was rolling down in waves down her back. From her hair. She was right; it was creepy and it felt wrong, like some kind of ectoplasmic slime instead of just an innocent water vapor. Ugh. I shook my hands and arms and watched it fly off me to melt in the air.
