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The genie is out of the bottle. Rogue Weather Warden Joanne Baldwin is racing to New York to warn her former colleagues of the impending apocalypse. An ancient agreement between the Djinn and the Wardens has been broken, and the furious Djinn, slaves to the Wardens for millennia, are now free of mortal control. With more than half the Wardens unaccounted for in the wake of the Djinn uprising, Joanne realizes that the natural disasters they've combated for so long were merely symptoms of restless Mother Nature fidgeting in her sleep. Now she's waking up - and she's angry -
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ROC Published by New American Library, a division of Penguin Group (USA) Inc., 375 Hudson Street, New York, New York 10014, USA Penguin Group (Canada), 90 Eglinton Avenue East, Suite 700, Toronto, Ontario M4P 2Y3, Canada (a division of Pearson Penguin Canada Inc.) Penguin Books Ltd., 80 Strand, London WC2R 0RL, England Penguin Ireland, 25 St. Stephen's Green, Dublin 2, Ireland (a division of Penguin Books Ltd.) Penguin Group (Australia), 250 Camberwell Road, Camberwell, Victoria 3124, Australia (a division of Pearson Australia Group Pty. Ltd.) Penguin Books India Pvt. Ltd., 11 Community Centre, Panchsheel Park, New Delhi - 110 017, India Penguin Group (NZ), cnr Airborne and Rosedale Roads, Albany, Auckland 1310, New Zealand (a division of Pearson New Zealand Ltd.) Penguin Books (South Africa) (Pty.) Ltd., 24 Sturdee Avenue, Rosebank, Johannesburg 2196, South Africa Penguin Books Ltd., Registered Offices: 80 Strand, London WC2R 0RL, England First published by Roc, an imprint of New American Library, a division of Penguin Group (USA) Inc. First Printing, September 2006 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 Copyright © Roxanne Longstreet Conrad, 2006 All rights reserved REGISTERED TRADEMARK—MARCA REGISTRADA Printed in the United States of America PUBLISHER'S NOTE This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resem-blance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental. 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, the