"I want to go home."
Oh, kid, so do I, Jez thought suddenly. She had to blink hard. Tm going to take you home-or at least someplace safe," she added, as honesty unexpectedly kicked in. There was something about the kid that made her not want to lie. "But first we've got to go to a friend of mine's house. But, look, no matter how strange all this seems, I want you to remember something. I won't let you get hurt. Okay? Can you believe that?"
"My mom is going to be scared."
Jez took a deep breath and headed onto the freeway. "I promise I won't let you get hurt," she said again.
And that was all she could say.
She felt like a centaur, some creature that was half person and half steel horse, carrying off a human kid at sixty miles an hour. It was pointless to try to make conversation on the freeway, and Iona didn't speak
again until they were roaring up to Morgead's building.
Then she said simply, "I don't want to go in there."
"It's not a bad place," Jez said, braking front and back. "We're going up on the roof. There's a little garden there."
A tiny flicker of interest showed in the solemn brown eyes. Four other bikes pulled in beside Jez.
"Yeeehaw! We got her!" Val yelled, pulling off his helmet.
"Yeah, and we'd better take her upstairs before somebody sees us," Raven said, tossing her dark hair so it fell over one eye again.
Thistle was climbing off the back of Raven's motorcycle. Jez felt the small body in front of her stiffen.
Thistle looked at Iona and smiled her sharp-toothed smile.
Iona just looked back. She didn't say a word, but after a minute Thistle flushed and turned away.
"So now we're going to test her, right? It's time to test her, isn't it, Morgead?"
Jez had never heard Thistle's voice so shrill-so disturbed. She glanced down at the child in front of her, but Morgead was speaking.
"Yeah, it's time to test her," he said, sounding unexpectedly tired for somebody who'd just pulled off such a triumph. Who'd just caught a Wild Power that was going to make his career. "Let's get it over with."
Chapter 12
Jez kept one hand on the kid as they walked up the stairs under the dirty fluorescent bulbs. She could only imagine what Iona must be thinking as they shepherded her to the top.
They came out on the roof into slanting afternoon sunlight. Jez gave Iona's shoulder a little squeeze.
"See-there's the garden." She nodded toward a potted palm and three wooden barrels with miscellaneous wilted leaves in them. Iona glanced that way, then gave Jez a sober look.
"They're not getting enough water," she said as quietly as she said everything.
"Yeah, well, it didn't rain enough this summer," Morgead said. "You want to fix that?"
Iona just looked seriously at him.
"Look, what I mean is, you've got the Power, right? So if you just want to show us right now, anything you want, be my guest. It'll make things a lot simpler. Make it rain, why don't you?"
Iona looked right at him. "I don't know what you're talking about."
"I'm just saying that there's no reason for you to get hurt here. We just want to see you do something like what you did the night of the fire. Anything. Just show us."
Jez watched him. There was something incongruous about the scene: Morgead in his high boots and leather jacket, iron-muscled, sleek, sinewy, on one knee in front of this harmless-looking kid in pink
pants. And the kid just looking back at him with her sad and distant eyes.
"I guess you're crazy," Iona said softly. Her pigtails moved as she shook her head. A pink ribbon fluttered loosely.
"Do you remember the fire?" Jez said from behind her.
"Course." The kid turned slowly around. "I was scared."
"But you didn't get hurt. The fire got close to you and then you did something. And then the fire went away."
"I was scared, and then the fire went away. But I didn't do anything."
"Okay," Morgead said. He stood. "Maybe if you can't tell us, you can show us."
Before Jez could say anything, he was picking up the little girl up and carrying her. He had to step over a line of debris that stretched like a diagonal wall from one side of the roof to the other. It was composed of telephone books, splintery logs, old clothes, and other odds and ends, and it formed a barrier, blocking off a corner of the roof from the rest.
He put Iona in the triangle beyond the debris. Then he stepped back over the wall, leaving her there.
Iona didn't say anything, didn't try to follow him back out of the triangle.
Jez stood tensely. The kid's a Wild Power, she told herself. She's already survived worse than this. And no matter what happens, she's not going to get hurt.
I promised her that.
But she would have liked to be telepathic again just for a few minutes, just to tell the kid one more time not to be scared. She especially wanted to as Val and Raven poured gasoline on the wall of debris. Iona watched them do it with huge sober eyes, still not moving.
Then Pierce lit a match.
. The flames leaped up yellow and blue. Not the bright orange they would have been at night.
But hot. They spread fast and Jez could feel the heat from where she was standing, ten feet away.
The kid was closer.
She still didn't say anything, didn't try to jump over the flames while they were low. In a few moments they were high enough that she couldn't jump through them without setting herself on fire.
Okay, Jez thought, knowing the kid couldn't hear her. Now, do it! Come on, Iona. Put the fire out.
Iona just looked at it.
She was standing absolutely still, with her little hands curled into fists at her sides. A small and lonely figure, with the late afternoon sun making a soft red halo around her head and the hot wind from the fire rippling her pink-trimmed shirt. She faced the flames dead-on, but not aggressively, not as if she were planning to fight them.