Free Total Eclipse by Rachel Caine Page B

handle and channel the kinds of power that would destroy—sooner or later—non-Wardens who tried to handle the same forces.
    I didn’t know whether the transfer of powers from me to Cherise—if that was what had happened—had also given her an upgrade on the physical side. If it hadn’t, it was like putting jet fuel in a car’s gas tank. It would run for only a short time before it exploded under the stress.
    I needed her to back off from using them until a specialist, an Earth Warden with real knowledge, could get a look at what was happening inside of her. But if she allowed instinct to dictate how those powers were used, we were all in serious trouble, and there was no way she’d be able to control any of it. I didn’t feel much like Yoda, but I’d have to do as a mentor.
    “There is no ‘try,’ ” I said, and then swallowed a laugh. “Okay, how is it now?”
    “Better,” Cherise said. “I feel better. Not as cold.”
    And sure enough, overhead, the shield holding the rain off us cut in and out for a few seconds, then collapsed completely. Instant white noise, from the rain pounding on the Boss’s metal, and I engaged the wipers on full. No trouble seeing the road ahead, even with the torrential downpour. . . . Lightning was a constant event, strobing everything into horror- movie shadows and glares. “Good,” I said, and put warm approval into my voice, even though I was freezing, still. “Good work, Cher. Did you feel it when it let go?”
    “Yeah, I think so.”
    “All right, here’s your first test. Try putting the shield back up again.”
    It took about thirty seconds, but she reestablished a flickering, uncertain rain shield above the car, then, at my direction, let it go. We did that three times, until she could put up and take down the shield on command. “Good,” I said. “Now you’re controlling it; it’s not controlling you. You feel that pulse of power that comes when you call? If you feel it coming when you didn’t mean to call it, stop it. You know how. It’s the same way you dropped the shield.”
    As teaching went, this was desperately inadequate. She ought to be sitting safely in a secured facility, hooked up to biofeedback equipment, getting instruction from a qualified Earth Warden who could walk her through things properly. But this was the Warden equivalent of first aid to the injured. . . . I just needed to get her stable for now. That meant teaching her whatever I could, as quickly as I could, while limiting her use of powers to the smallest expenditures possible.
    It also meant outrunning this storm.
    I opened up the Mustang and let him fly, and oh man, could he fly. The road vibration that was noticeable at lower speeds vanished as he hit his stride, and then it settled into a power glide so smooth it was like levitating as the speed needle hit a hundred.
    This was dangerous. It wasn’t that I hadn’t driven this fast, under these conditions, before; I’d even done it while splitting my attention between controlling external supernatural forces and the road. But now I felt acutely human, powerless, and exposed. David couldn’t cover me. Cherise was now as much of a hindrance as a help, and Kevin—God only knew what Kevin could do, other than blow things up. Which he would do with great enthusiasm, of course. That wasn’t always a downside. . . .
    “Something’s happening,” Cherise said suddenly. There was suppressed panic in her voice, and when I looked in the rearview mirror I saw that her eyes had gone wide, her face tight with fear. “I feel—it’s like a spike, in my head, this feeling—something’s looking at me . . . .”
    I knew that feeling. It was the storm, and it had found her. We were about to be targeted.
    “Easy,” I said, in my most calm and soothing voice. I gripped the steering wheel tightly to keep my hands from shaking. “That’s okay, that’s normal, all right? Take a deep breath. I need you to close your eyes now, and tell me