Free Firestorm by Rachel Caine Page A

brilliant white light, they all looked stark and surprised, and to a Warden they flinched when I released a pulse of energy that flared out in a circle like a strobe going off.
    I let the glow die down slowly and touched my feet back on the carpet.
    â€œRight,” I said. “Let’s quit freaking and start working, all right?”
    Nobody spoke. Dozens of faces, and they were all turned to me—young Wardens barely out of college, old gray-haired ones who’d been handling the business of earth and fire and weather for three-quarters of their long lives. They were tough, or they were damn lucky, every single one of them.
    And most important, they were what we had.
    I pointed to the Warden who’d been arguing against opening the bottles—a slender little African American guy, about thirty, with a receding hairline and bookish wire-rimmed spectacles. “What’s your name?” I asked. He didn’t look at all familiar.
    â€œWill,” he said. “William Sebhatu.”
    â€œWill, I’m putting you in charge of the Djinn issue,” I said. “You need to get every single Djinn bottle, empty or sealed, make an inventory, and put everything in the vault. And then you seal the vault and you make damn sure that nobody, and I mean nobody, opens up any bottles. Got it?”
    â€œWait a minute!” That was Will’s debating opponent, a big-boned woman with a horse face and bitter-almond eyes. “You can’t just make a decision like that! Who the hell do you think you are? You’re not even a Warden anymore!” I remembered her. Emily, a double threat—an Earth and Fire Warden out of Canada. She was blunt, but she was good at her job; she also had a reputation for being pushy.
    â€œBack off,” Paul said wearily from his chair in the conference room. His voice echoed through the silence. “She’s one of us. Hell, she may be the only one who knows enough to get us through the day.” He sounded defeated. I didn’t care for that. I hadn’t meant to take away his authority—at least, not permanently—but Paul wasn’t acting like a guy who could shoulder the burden anymore. “Jo, do your stuff.”
    â€œOkay,” I said. I turned back to the woman, who was still giving me the fish eye. “Emily, you think you can make this work because you think you’re smarter than the Djinn, or faster, or more powerful. You can’t. You all need to unlearn what you know about the Djinn. They’re not subservient. They’re not stupid. And they’re not ours, not anymore.”
    The assembled Wardens were whispering to each other. Emily was staring at me. So was Will. I heard my name being passed around, in varying degrees of incredulity. I thought she was dead, someone said, just a little too loudly for comfort.
    â€œThis is stupid,” Emily finally said. “Paul, I thought she was out of the Wardens. How does she know anything?”
    â€œShe knows because she was with the Djinn when it happened,” Marion said, and rolled closer with a brisk snap of her wrists. “Right?”
    I nodded. “I saw it happen. We’ve lost control, and as far as I know, we’ve lost it for good. We need to face that and figure out how to go forward.”
    â€œForward?” somebody in the crowd yelped. “You’ve got to be kidding. We need the Djinn!”
    â€œNo, we don’t,” another person countered sharply. “I barely escaped, and only because mine got distracted. Whatever’s happening, we can’t risk involvement with the Djinn.”
    â€œExactly,” I said. “We have to rely on ourselves, and each other. Will? You up for the job?”
    He swallowed hard and nodded. “I’ll get started.”
    â€œGet some people to help you. Draft them if you have to, and don’t be afraid to use Paul’s name as a big stick.” I waited for some confirmation