"Never," Ella put in. "I guess it could be kids, though the timing's odd. But Djinn wouldn't have a reason to do this, and if a Warden did it, well, there must have been a reason."
"Were they out to steal records? Destroy them?" I asked.
Oh, boy. Another significant glance.
"Again," John said, "I think we're on a subject that's off limits. Look, you did what Paul asked, you checked. We're fine. I think you should go now."
It hurt. I'd worked for John for a long time, and we'd been friends. Not bosom-buddy friends, but strong acquaintances, good to get together for the occasional drink, chat about family and friends, exchange Christmas presents.
I'd trusted him with my life. I couldn't believe that had changed overnight.
But maybe I should have known, considering how many things were changing overnight these days.
"Jo, don't take it personally. You did quit, you know," Ella said. "And I'm still finding that hard to believe, sunshine. You're the most dedicated Warden I've ever met."
"I was the most dedicated Warden you ever met," I said. "Trust me, I had reasons."
"Well, if you quit over some dumb disagreement, it's a bad time for it," she said. "Bad Bob is gone and we've down three Wardens around here. From what I've heard, half the senior members of the organization are dead or disabled, and the other half can't decide what to do about it. We're barely holding together."
I hadn't come to listen to the we-need-you-back speech, but something Ella had said stopped me. "Three team members?" I asked. "Me, Bad Bob... who else?"
"Ella," John warned. She ignored him and kept talking.
"We lost another Weather Warden two nights ago," Ella said. "Carol Shearer. Car accident."
Another Djinn casualty, probably. They used natural forces to do the dirty work, not their own hands. They hit hard and fast, before a Warden could react to give their Djinn commands, and if the Djinn wasn't commanded to be proactive, or wasn't in the mood, then Ashan was the winner. Maybe he was systematically working his way through the ranks, testing.
Maybe John had already been targeted for death, but his Djinn had protected him without orders. The two of them had always seemed to enjoy a good professional relationship.
"I'm sorry to hear about Carol," I said. "But I can't come back right now even if you'd have me. And frankly, I wouldn't be any good to you if I did. I've got some, ah, issues."
John gave me the unfocused, faraway look of someone using Oversight. Whatever he saw, he went a shade graver and nodded. No comments. He'd seen the damage that had been done to me.
"Thanks for the offer, anyway," he said. Not that I'd really made one.
"Let me help you clean up. Least I can do, after all the chaos I've caused over the years."
John hesitated, but hell, he was shorthanded. I called Paul and reassured him all was well. While I was doing that, John called up his Djinn-who was a sweet-faced young man with glittering white-diamond eyes-and got the worst of the big damage repaired with a few murmured commands. I kept an eagle eye on that, believe me... but I didn't see any indication of an impending rebellion. He and his Djinn got on well. Always had. I sensed a certain restrained fondness between them-not love, and not even friendship, but a good partnership. In many ways, John Foster was the poster child for what a Warden ought to be.
It depressed me. It reminded me of just how much I wasn't, even when I was at my best. I was a messy, sloppy, emotional maverick. I couldn't color inside the lines even when I wanted to.
I helped Ella with the grunt work of restoring files to the cabinets, and as I did, I realized that most of the folders had to do with personnel. Detailed records of everything that we'd done, throughout our tenure with the Wardens. Ah, so this was where all those reports went to die... nice to know that all those hours spent typing on a keyboard actually had some kind of effect. I'd half suspected all my hard work just disappeared into the aetheric, where it got eaten by hungry demons. Or malicious Free Djinn.
About the fifteenth folder I picked up-and it was huge, papers spilling everywhere-had my name on it. I paused, startled, and flipped it open. The clips that held reports in the file were missing, and everything was crammed in at odd angles, as if it had been gone through fast.
The memo on top was signed by Paul Giancarlo, National Warden Pro Tem. It was an order to keep me under close surveillance for any suspicious activities related to fraud, blackmail, and illegal trading in weather control.
I felt a wave of cold rush over me, and in its backwash came another one of heat, burning down from the top of my head and taking up residence somewhere in my gullet. In the memo, Paul practically accused me of collusion with two other Wardens-one of them Bad Bob-in carrying out a scheme to steer tropical storms, hurricanes, and tornadoes toward certain areas of the coastline, where an outfit named Paradise Kingdom seemed to be making a business of building expensive resorts and condominiums, only to have them destroyed before opening by bad weather.
For the insurance money.
The score so far: storms four, Paradise Kingdom zero. They'd never actually opened a single property.
Paradise Kingdom. I remembered that name, and it came back with a jolt... the drive out along the coast. A dead dad and kids. Tornadoes twisting the under-construction hotel to wreckage.
I flipped pages. The photos showed shoddy construction, with detailed notes.
Substandard parts. Bad wiring. Reused materials. If the buildings had ever actually opened, they'd have been deathtraps-but the insurance records showed payouts as if the construction had been to the finest possible standards.
I'd never even heard of Paradise Kingdom, but I was starting to shake with fury and a little bit of fear.
The folder was snatched out of my hands and slapped shut. John frowned at me, handed it to Ella, who mutely began straightening up the papers inside it.
"Let me guess," I said. "I wasn't supposed to see that." Except Ella must have thought differently; she'd pointedly ignored the folder lying all by itself, and left it to me to pick up.
"You know I can't talk to you about it."
"Don't I have the right to at least try to clear my name?"
"Nobody's blackened your name," he said, and crossed his arms. He looked tired.
There was more gray in his hair than I remembered. "Look, yes, there's talk; there has been talk ever since Bad Bob died. Lots of people think you killed him to shut him up."
"It was self-defense!" I practically yelled it. He nodded, arms folded; the body language of rejection. "Dammit, John, don't you believe me? You knew that old bastard! He was a corrupt, scary old man-"
"He was a legend," John said softly. "You killed a legend. You have to understand that no matter what he was, what bad things he did, nobody's going to remember that now. What they remember are his accomplishments, not his flaws."
He stuck a demon down my throat! I wanted to scream, but I couldn't. And it didn't matter. John was right, Bad Bob was an untouchable saint, and I was the evil, scheming bitch who'd slaughtered a helpless old guy in his own home. No doubt the Paradise Kingdom scheme had been all his; it had all the hallmarks of his style. He'd probably involved a few other Wardens in it, for profit, but he hadn't included me. He'd known that I would have busted him.
I could practically hear him laughing, out there in hell. I hoped it was extra hot and he was drinking Tabasco sauce to cool off.
"I don't know anything about this," I said. John gave me a funny look, then turned to Ella. She shot him another glance back, raised her eyebrows, and nodded toward the other side of the room. John walked silently away. His Djinn was standing there, fixing up a shattered desk with long, smooth strokes of his fingers over wood. Where it had splintered, it fused together seamlessly.
"John can't say anything about this," Ella said, "but I've only got a couple of years to retirement; I couldn't give a shit what the Wardens do to me. Petal, claiming ignorance about Paradise Kingdom isn't going to do you any good. You'd better come up with another story, fast."
"What? Why?"
She straightened more papers in my file, reached for a bracket, and pushed it through the holes of the folder. Began systematically attaching reports to it.
"Paradise Kingdom's owned by your boss, Marvin McLarty. Marvelous Marvin. You know, the 'weatherman.' " She paused to give it air quotes and an eyeroll. "So you can't exactly claim that you don't have a connection to it. He hired you without an interview. You must have known him before you took the job."
That bastard. That snake. That... horny, no-good little poodle! I couldn't believe it. He was too stupid to be venal. Right? Marvelous Marvin, investing in property fraud schemes with Wardens? That meant he knew about them, in the first place... and she was right, I'd sent in a resume, and Marvin had hired me after giving me one look. I'd thought it was, well, for the cheesecake value, and I'm sure that made the deal sweeter for him. But it must have been something more.
Somebody must have told him to do it. Somebody, maybe, who wanted a convenient scapegoat if things got scary for them. Because on paper, I damn sure looked guilty.
If Marvin was involved with Bad Bob, that explained a lot. His percent accuracy rate, for one thing, which would have been a source of amusement to somebody like Bad Bob. He'd have been able to pull it off, too, without attracting Warden notice. Bad Bob's rating had been far higher than John Foster's, and besides, he was a legend. Who questioned a legend?
Bad Bob Biringanine had been willing to sell his ethics and reputation for a nice house, a tidy bank account, and all the comforts of organized crime. But ... Marvelous Marvin? Who could take him seriously as a bad guy? And maybe that was precisely the point.
Ella was watching me, waiting for an answer. I didn't have one.
"Don't you believe I'm innocent?" I asked her.
"Of course I do, honey. Don't be ridiculous!" I saw her eyes stay fixed and steady on me, in a way that only happens when the answer is a flat-out lie.
"Even if you did do it, hell, the whole organization's falling apart. It's pretty much every woman for herself right now." She kept staring at me.
And I realized something fairly significant. There was still weather manipulation going on, even with Bad Bob dead. If I took myself out of the equation, there was a pretty limited pool of suspects.
Not John. I shifted my stare to him, watching the way he talked with his Djinn, the way he listened attentively, the way the Djinn moved in such an open, easy fashion. No fear, no guarding, no resistance. John was one of the good guys; I knew it in my heart.
Carol Shearer, whom I hadn't known well, might have been in it, but I'd never know, would I? Because she was dead, killed in a car accident.
If it hadn't been Carol...
Why was Ella still looking at me?
"Does John know?" I asked her.
"About... ?"
"Marvin."
"Oh, sure. That's why he won't talk to you. It's killing him, you know; he wants to believe in you, but... ah, hell, honey, he's an idealist. You know how John can get. No sense of the real world."
I decided to jump in the alligator pond. "Well," I said, lowering my voice to a just-us-girls whisper, "confidentially, I wasn't in on it. But you know that, right? I mean, Bad Bob told me about it that morning, and I was thinking it over, but I had no idea it was still going on. It is still going on, though. Right?"
She blinked and said, "You don't think I have anything to do with it, do you?"
I raised my eyebrows.
And, after a split second, she lowered her eyelids and whispered, "Not while he's here."
I'm glad I wasn't quite looking at her; she probably would have read the heartbreak in my eyes. But she didn't notice. She turned away and finished putting the papers of my file in order, and bent the brackets to hold everything inside, nice and neat. I noticed there were some papers she hadn't put back. She shifted the stack in my direction with an unmistakable take-them nod.
I felt sick, but managed to hold on to my smile. I collected the papers and stuck them into my purse, trying to look casual about it. Ella watched me with a strange little smile, then winked and turned away to grub in folders again.
We were collaborating.
I pulled in a deep breath and walked over to John and his Djinn. The Djinn focused on me, swept those white-fire eyes over me, and did such an obvious double take it was almost funny. I knew it wasn't my outfit-it wasn't that bad-and after the initial confusion I figured out what he was focusing so intently on.
I put a hand over my lower stomach, instinctively, as if I could somehow shield my unborn Djinn child from his stare.
He yanked his gaze back up, and I lifted my chin and dared him to say something.
He just lifted an eyebrow so dryly it almost made me laugh, then turned to John and said, "Will that be all, John?" He had an English accent, very butler-y.
John thanked him politely and poof, we were Djinn-free. I wondered what the Djinn's name was, but it was impolite to ask. When you met a Warden and a Djinn together, you weren't supposed to even acknowledge the Djinn.
I don't think that was etiquette invented by the Djinn.
"I'm sorry, John, but I need to get going," I said. He nodded and extended a hand for me to shake; I did, and then held on to it. I leaned forward and brushed a kiss across his cheek. He smelled of a dry, astringent cologne and a wisp of tobacco. "Take care," I said, and dropped my voice to a whisper while I was next to his ear. "Don't trust anyone. Anyone."
I didn't want to point the finger at Ella specifically, not yet, but a general warning never did anyone any harm. He pulled back, frowning, and then composed himself and gave me a placid nod. "You take care, now."
"You, too," I said, and made my way through the still-messy room to the Djinn-repaired door.
It hadn't been a robbery. Somebody had come in here looking for records, and they'd gone through my file like a fine-toothed comb.
It looked like everybody wanted to keep track of me-good guys, bad guys, people I didn't even recognize as being on one side or the other. Who the hell knew.
I was seriously considering grabbing David's bottle and my sister, and fleeing the country.
INTERLUDE
On the island, the storm strips hundred-year-old trees bare, then snaps the trunks and throws them with lethal force into every man-made structure in the way. Walls disintegrate. Roofs disappear into a blizzard of broken wood and tile. Even palm fronds become deadly cutting instruments, driven by winds of unimaginable force.
The storm stops, turns, and begins to feed.
Death comes mostly from the storm surge, which creeps up over the land not in a wave but with the constant pace of a pail poured into a tub. Water rises to fill houses in minutes, drowning frantic occupants who can't flee into the killing winds. Some structures, farther from the shore, begin to shudder and breathe with the storm, walls collapsing outward, then pulling upright again, each vibration shattering more of the foundations.
Men, women, children, and animals are pulled from shelter and swept into the fury, where they're stripped first of clothes, then of flesh, then shattered into ragged bits.
The carnage is constant and merciless, and the storm feeds, and feeds, and feeds. It has no will to move on from the feast. Even when the island is stripped bare, to the rocks, the winds and waves continue to lash and lick the last fragments of life.
The exposed bedrock blackens. Even the algae die.
When the storm has sucked every breath from a land that once held millions, it buries it under the sea and moves on, searching for its next victim.
This is where I come in.
SEVEN
As above, so below. The old saying was holding true today. I got to the security doors of the lobby just as the clouds cut loose and the rain began.
Florida rain is like a faucet-two speeds, flood and stop. The setting was definitely on flood this morning. I stood at the glass and looked out at the thick gray wall of water-couldn't really make out the parking lot behind it-and looked down at my shoes. They weren't rain-appropriate, but then the rest of the outfit wasn't exactly going to be repelling a lot of water, either.
At least it's just rain, I told myself. Could be worse...
And right on cue, a white stab of lightning split the sky outside, close enough that I didn't need Warden senses to register the power jolt. I felt it sweep over my skin and draw every tiny hair to shivering attention.
The thunder that followed shook the glass and set off a howling chorus of car alarms.
The next strike was about fifty feet away from me, right outside in the parking lot, and it came as a fork of blue-white light reaching down and grounding itself in one of the cars. What the hell... ? It shouldn't have done that.
There were lots of taller objects to draw it, but then lightning was whimsical that way. And vicious.
