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Firestorm

(The fifth book in the Weather Warden series)

A novel by Rachel Caine

For Jenny Griffee, NaNoNov winner of 2004,

who provided a hell of a good idea for a new class of magical being,

not to mention a slam-bang character

Acknowledgments

The author wishes to thank the following:

My absolutely incredible editor, Liz Scheier, for her patience and help during my personal crisis that fell right across the deadline for this book.

My equally incredible agent, Lucienne Diver, without whose support and encouragement none of this would be happening (or ever would have, for that matter).

The Stormchasers, all five hundred-plus of them, who are some of the most enthusiastic and wonderful folks I could ever hope to know.

My LJ friends, nearly as numerous as the Stormchasers, every single one of them a gem.

Kelley, Maria, Claire, Laurie, Katy, and Becky: the Time Turners. Goddesses all.

Independent booksellers Edge Books and Bakka-Phoenix.

ORAC, especially P. N. Elrod, Joanne Madge, and Jackie Leaf.

My husband, Cat, for supporting me at every step of the process, and being my cheering section.

Tory Fuller, who has given me immense help by vetting the weather content of these books…

Mistakes are all mine, mine, mine.

And as always, the great Joe Bonamassa, who makes this writing process so much more fun by turning out incredible music. Come back to Texas more often.

We love you.

PREVIOUSLY…

My name is Joanne Baldwin, and in case you haven't been keeping up with current events, we're in big trouble.

The world, I mean. As for me, I've been in trouble since… well, always… but this is big. The Wardens—the folks who are supposed to be protecting all of you from the dangers of raging fires, floods, earthquakes, and natural disasters of all kinds—have been compromised. Slowly but surely, they've lost their way and become corrupt and ineffective.

I used to be one of them, until I acquired a Demon Mark and fell in love with a Djinn, but that's another story altogether (Ill Wind, actually, if you're taking notes). The point is that now, the Djinn—who should be the allies of the Wardens—aren't playing by the rules that have held for millennia. A Djinn named Jonathan set up those rules, and now that Jonathan's gone, all bets are off.

And the Djinn's new leader? My lover, David. What that bodes for a stable relationship is still up in the air, but confidentially? I'm worried.

The human race has one chance to keep its place at the top of the food chain: make peace with the Djinn, and that means somehow, some way, making peace with the Earth itself. Which ain't gonna be easy, because Mother Nature is pissed off.

And apparently, I may be the only one able to do something about it.

Lucky me…

Chapter One

I was thinking that the Wardens needed a new motto. The old one, the one on the seals on my diploma, was Defensor Hominem, Latin for "Defender of Mankind," but sometime in the past twenty-four hours, I'd become convinced that I had a more appropriate motto: We're So Screwed.