Firestorm Read Free

good looks, and a turbocharged engine.
    I had my work cut out for me as we eased back into gear and tore at top speed along I-295. The storm systems just kept piling up—there was a new supercell forming off the low-pressure system in Georgia, and it was bound to head our way. That wasn’t good physics, but it was the way my generally crappy luck ran these days.
    â€œThat was a good trick with the tornado, Mom,” said a voice from the backseat. Formal, female, and a little awkward. I jumped in surprise, and then I focused on a face in the rearview mirror that was eerily similar to my own, except for the eyes. Mine were plain blue. The ones staring back at me were an interesting shade of ruddy gold—I don’t mean amber; amber’s a human color. This was amber on acid. Amber taken up to insane saturation levels.
    In short, the eyes were Djinn. And they belonged to my daughter.
    They widened. “Did I frighten you?”
    â€œFrighten?” I shot back. “Why should I be frightened if somebody pops out of nowhere into the backseat of my car? Let’s see, half the Djinn are trying to kill the Wardens, and at least some of the Wardens are infected with Demon Marks, and let’s not forget the weather’s all screwed up…oh, and the Earth’s about to wake up and destroy humankind. You know what? Being a little frightened is a pretty laid-back response, all things considered, and yeah, next time? Knock.”
    She smiled. Tentatively, as if she was still translating all of that into Djinn-speak. I felt an immediate stab of guilt; the poor kid had been alive for all of not-even-a-day. She seemed to lack the one characteristic that was common among all the Djinn I’d ever met: smugness. I’d thought it came coded in Djinn DNA, along with pretty eyes and the cool ability to pop in and out of existence at will.
    â€œAlthough,” Imara ventured, “you could have done it more efficiently. Do you want me to show you how?”
    â€œNot right now,” I managed to say between gritted teeth. “Any guidance you can offer beyond second-guessing my lifesaving abilities?”
    She looked injured. So I wasn’t good at this mom thing. I was still trying to get my head around the idea that the child I had carried inside me—and it wasn’t a normal pregnancy, by any stretch of the imagination—had all of a sudden sprung up fully adult, with her own set of emotions unrelated to my own.
    â€œSorry,” I said, more softly. “Imara, do you know anything? Anything about—” David, oh God, I’m afraid for you. And I miss you. “—about your father?”
    She shook her head, holding my eyes in the mirror. Djinn, unlike human beings, spring out of death, not life. The greater the death, the greater the Djinn—that’s the rule. Djinn don’t like to acknowledge that a lot of them have very human histories behind them, but it’s an indisputable fact. David—Djinn and lover and father of my child—had told me months ago that in order for our child to be born, it would mean he had to die. That was the normal order of things, in the Djinn world.
    Only something strange had happened, and another death—a greater death—had stepped in to give my child life. David was still alive.
    Just not himself, exactly. He’d become…different.
    â€œMom,” Imara said. “Are you all right?” She waved a graceful hand in front of my face, which I impatiently swatted away and focused back on my driving. “I apologize,” she said, and withdrew back into a dignified sitting position. “I thought you were in some kind of distress.”
    I can’t describe how it feels to hear that word. Mom. Oh, I’d gotten comfortable with the idea of being pregnant, but being a mother was a whole different thing—especially mother of a grown young woman who dressed better than I did. I consoled myself