My name is Joanne Baldwin. I used to control the weather, but I've given that up. See, I've discovered that the Wardens-who are supposed to be protecting all of you from horrible deaths from fires, floods, earthquakes, storms, and other fun rides cooked up by a hostile Mother Nature-haven't been entirely on the up and up, and besides that, there's the whole question of the Djinn they use to help them in their work. I used to think it was okay to keep a magical being locked up in a bottle and subject to your will. Not anymore, not since I fell in love with one. Having given up my day job, I've found it necessary to put the tattered remnants of my normal life back together again... no easy task for a girl without many marketable skills outside of the supernatural realm. Plus, there's the whole issue of having been dead, once upon a time. Kind of makes going home difficult. And that really fast car I love so much? Could be getting me into trouble. Or maybe that's just my natural state of existence. INTERLUDE It doesn't take much to destroy the world as humans know it. Unseasonably hot sunshine beating down on a small patch of ocean off the coast of Africa.