“Yeah, well, I admit, the retro trashy look had its charms, but right at the moment I’m more concerned with saving some lives.” I pointed up. Even inside of his apartment, I could hear the thunder and feel the electric snap of the lightning strikes. “Gotta go.”
“Yes,” he agreed. He looked at me very seriously for a few seconds. “Where is Sara?”
“At Jonathan’s house.”
He looked ill. “They’ll destroy her.”
“Actually, they’ve got bigger problems to worry about just now. Like me.” I left him and moved around to the front of the couch.
Yep. There he was, my teen Nero-in-training, crashed out in a sprawl on the leather couch, mouth gaping to show poor dental hygiene. He was snoring.
Also smiling.
I leaned over and whispered, “Kevin? Wake up.”
No response. Damn. I’d drawn on his own power to put him in this trance. Was it something I could snap him out of? I hadn’t been thinking that far ahead, I had to admit. I reached out, grabbed, and shook him. His oily hair flopped back and forth, and he snorkled a breath. His eyelids fluttered.
Nothing.
“Kevin!” I screamed, and shook him again. “Damn, what do I have to do? Wake up!”
He mumbled something, smacked at me ineffectually with a clumsy hand, and tried to turn over.
I grabbed him and kissed him. After the first few slack seconds, I felt him kiss me back.
Ewwwwwwww. Not that boys his age were great kissers in general, but he had a lot to learn. No style points. I broke free before the wiggling worm of his tongue got too far into my mouth and shook him again, for emphasis.
His eyes were open, but cloudy. Cleaned up, he probably wouldn’t be half bad, but the fact was he wasn’t cleaned up, or even clean. The body odor alone made me think of places without running water or inside plumbing.
“Wha?” The word was garbled, but still semicoherent. I yanked him up by the grimy T-shirt to a sitting position. “… gone.”
“Shut up and listen,” I said. “I need your help.”
“… help?” He blinked slowly, like an owl. His pupils were way too large. “Why?”
“Philosophy some other time. Just repeat what I say. Got it?”
“Repeat.”
“Very good.” I resisted the urge to pat him on the head, mostly because I really didn’t want to get greasy. “I order you to destroy the storm.”
“Mmmm?” His eyes were glazing over. I pinched him hard enough to make a welt, and he yelped and cleared up. “What?”
“I order you to destroy the storm. Say it.”
Oops. I’d woken him up too much. “Why?” The vague look was vanishing like snow under an Arizona summer sun. “You. You… you tricked me.”
“Just say it.”
“Or?” His jaw hardened as muscles clenched. He was willing himself awake, and all of the nice happy thoughts he’d been dreaming were slipping away. “You’ll put me to sleep again?” I’d liked him better asleep. Who wouldn’t? “No. I’m your, ah, master. You do what I say.”
“Then tell me to destroy the storm.”
His eyes narrowed behind the pretty, girl-length lashes. “Why should I? What’s in it for me?”
“Oh, I don’t know… survival? Can’t you feel this?” But then I realized that of course he couldn’t; for him, like for most people, the storm was just a storm. Bad, yes. A killer. But not sentient, not rabid and scenting fresh meat. Not alive. His talent was fire. “Shit. Please, Kevin. Do one decent thing in your life. I’m begging you. Let me do this.”
He kept staring at me for a few seconds. My bottle was clenched in his fist, my soul in his control, and the lives of thousands hanging in the balance.
“Fine,” he finally said. “Go destroy the damn storm.”
I was almost out of there when he added, “And take me with you.”
I materialized back in the lobby at the Secretariat tower to find it mostly deserted. Martin Oliver was still there; so were some of the security guards. Earth Wardens were shouting to each other over the steady shriek of wind, and a continuous silver curtain of rain was slicing in through broken windows. Everyone on the east side of the building was out, now. The storm had been continuing its grenade attack. The marble was a minefield of ice and glass shards, water, and blood.
Kevin was whooping in my ear. He liked aetheric travel a little too much, even with the smothering blanket of coldlight—ah, that’s right, I remembered, he couldn’t see it. None of them could.
“That is so cool!” he crowed, and did a spastic little dance on the slippery floor. He stopped, stared around. “Jeez. You weren’t kidding.”