Ill Wind (Weather Warden #1)

I shouted a no, but Alice was already moving, reaching out for me and I couldn't move backwards fast enough. I tripped over a threadbare Persian carpet and fell against a table as her small pale hand reached out toward me . . .

. . . and David intercepted her, stiff-armed her back. Alice flinched from him and tried to come around the other side. David put himself in the middle and held her off. Star, standing off to the side, quietly watching, said nothing at all.

"Call her off!" I ordered. Star raised her hands and let them fall. "Star, dammit, call her off. This is crazy!"

"Can't," she said. "Three wishes. I'm out of here, babe. Better let it happen."

She waved to Alice, and instantly disappeared. With the book.

I yelled at David to hold Alice and I darted for the no admittance door at the back, where Cathy had gone. A blur streaked toward me, blue and white, and I slammed the door against it and stumbled back into boxes that tumbled over and spilled gaudy romance novels to the floor in a spray of heaving breasts and manly thews. I slipped on one and bruised my knee so hard, I saw red pulsing dots.

Alice blew through the door like it wasn't even there and reached out for me, and even while she did, I saw the terror in her eyes, the horror, the desperation. She knew what this meant. Eternal torment for her. And yet . . . she had no choice.

A blur of hot bronze collided with her and sent her off course, and I managed to clamber back to my feet and run down the narrow, dusty hallway. Pretty much useless, running, but I was out of options.

No. Wait. I wasn't. I sucked down gulps of air and tried to focus around the panic that was jackhammering my heart.

Alice got free of David again and flashed toward me. I stopped, turned, and put out my hands as if I might grab her in turn . . . . . . and called the wind.

It blew down the narrow corridor, swirling, ripping, tearing covers and ripping books into blizzards, hit Alice and tumbled her helplessly backwards. David, too. They both dropped from vapor into heavier flesh, but I just called more power, whipped the wind faster. The walls creaked around me, and the far door blew open with a splintering crash, spilling hurricane forces out into the bookstore where racks blew over and paperbacks were sent flying.

In my chest, something ignited. Sent feeders of blackness threading through my aching body.

I couldn't control it anymore. The wind ripped free of me, became wild and alive and dark, became a lover whispering over me, stroking my hair and pressing against me like a living thing.

David was screaming something into the wind at me. Telling me something I didn't want to hear. Something about the Demon Mark. It didn't matter. Not anymore. I could keep him away, could blow sweet little Alice back to Wonderland, could reduce this miserable little store to sticks and splinters. And I wanted to. God, I wanted all this filth to go away, quit clinging to me, quit holding me back from what I was becoming. Sticks and splinters, that was so easy. Bodies in the way? Hamburger. Gobbets of flesh, ground up between steel and stone.

Somebody was trying to stop me. They weren't doing very well, but they were trying. I opened my eyes and squinted through flying debris and saw someone standing against the wall, holding on to an iron bar for dear life. Her short brown hair blew out like a thistle, crackling with static and potential energy.

Cathy Ball. I blinked and went up into Oversight. She was scared, streaked in blacks and grays and hot liquid yellows, but she was fighting me.

I didn't have to stop. It would have been easy not to. But looking at her, so small against all the power burning in me, against the black writhing nest of the Demon Mark that was feeding and consuming and growing ... I knew I had to try.

I let the wind fall. Alice, single-minded as ritual demanded, lunged for me.

"Stop!" Cathy commanded her, and she did, as suddenly as if physics had no meaning for her. Frozen in time.

"Tell her not to take the Mark," I said. Cathy's face went pallid. "Tell her."

"Don't take the Mark," she whispered. Alice relaxed, and the blue eyes filled up with emotion again-resentment, fear, relief, anguish. All hidden the instant she turned back to her master.

It didn't take Cathy long to get a handle on what was going on, or what we were all risking. She glanced at David just once, then focused on me and said, "Get your Demon Marked ass out of my store."

I swallowed a spark of anger. "I'll pay for-"

"You won't do a goddamned thing except get the hell gone!" she shouted, and her face flushed red with the release of tension and fear. I didn't try to apologize. There was no apologizing for what I'd done, or what I'd almost done, or what had almost been done to her Djinn.

Cathy watched me walk to the splintered, gaping door, out into the ruined bookstore. As I stumbled over broken racks and scattered books, I heard her say to her Djinn in a disgusted, shaking voice, "Help me clean this mess up, will you?"

I made it outside before the panic attack hit me.

Well, this was about as low as I could go. On my hands and knees, shivering, gasping, crying like a baby. My whole body ached from the force of it, the need to get rid of the thing inside me and-worse- the horrible feeling of betrayal and grief.

Star wasn't who I thought. Maybe she hadn't ever been the person I'd thought she was. All this time I'd been believing in her, in our strong and unshakable friendship, and for all I knew, that had all been a lie, too.

Star had made a deal, quite literally, with the Devil. Like Bad Bob, she'd opened herself, and something had crawled inside . . . and nobody, not even me, had known the difference.

I felt David's hands on my shoulders and leaned back against him. So much comfort in his touch, and I didn't even know why. Why I trusted him, when I knew better . . . They'd all betrayed me, even Lewis. He'd told me to come here, but where the hell was he when I needed him? I'd trusted Star. I'd trusted Bad Bob.

How could I ever trust David? I barely knew him.

"Get up," he said, and helped me to my feet. "You have to go. Quickly."

I couldn't. It was done, it was over, there wasn't anything left in me.

He half pushed, half carried me to the Land Rover. As he did, the timer on the outside sign for Ball's Books clicked on and lit us up in a cool yellow glow. Amazingly, from the street, you couldn't tell a thing had happened inside the store. The plate glass windows were intact, and the front part of the store still looked normal.

"I'm not going anywhere," I said numbly. David opened the door of the Land Rover.

"Yes, you are," he said. "I want you to drive. Go as far and as fast as you can. Don't let anything stop you. If Lewis is still out here, he'll find you." He captured my face between those large, warm hands. "Jo. Please. Last chance. Let me take the Mark."

"No," I whispered. "I can't. Please don't ask me again."

"I won't." He looked up at a flash of lightning. "You have to go. Now."

I tasted the tang of ozone, smelled the hot burn on the air. Power calls to power. I'd stirred up the aetheric, and that would help the storm that was hunting me. He was right. I had to go. If I stayed here, innocent people would suffer.

"What about you?" I asked. "David?" I took his hands and held them tight. "You're coming with me?"

The look on his face. If I'd ever had any doubt about how deeply Djinn could feel ... "I can't. She knows what I am, and she has the book. If you won't claim me-"

"She will," I finished, and felt my skin pebble into gooseflesh at the idea. "No. You can't let that happen."

He smiled at me, very slightly, and ran his thumb across my lips. "I can't prevent it."

I could feel the nightmare closing in on me, clocks ticking, hearts racing, sands running out. I was dying and living and running all at once, and there was a storm inside me, black with thunder, white with lightning, and rain crawled in my veins.

He put his hand over the Mark. It didn't help. The storm didn't stop. Even when he kissed me-a long, gentle, lingering kiss that had the taste of good-bye.

"Remember me," he whispered, with his lips still touching mine. "No matter what happens."

I felt him melt away like mist, and when I reached out to touch his face, it was gone; there was nothing but the memory of him in my fingers and the taste of him burning my lips.

I screamed and screamed and screamed into the wind, but he didn't come back.

I drove the Land Rover out of town at high speed, not caring if anyone saw me; not caring about much of anything, really. Star would find me. Marion would find me. Hell, it really didn't matter who found me anymore, because it was all coming apart, I was coming apart, and David was gone.

Something flickered at the corner of my eye as I made the turn onto I-35, heading south for the Texas border. I had a stowaway in the passenger seat. Unseeable is easier than invisible, David had told me.

I reached over and grabbed Rahel by the wrist without looking at her, and when I turned my head, she faded into view, sunshine yellow still neon-bright and unnaturally stylish in the dashboard lights.

"I told you, you're a fool," she said. "Let go of my arm, Snow White."

"I can hurt you," I said. It was true. The Demon Mark had braided into me so deeply now that I had the power, power to smash and flatten and hurt even a Djinn. When David had vanished, the last reason I had to resist that power was gone. What was the point of being human, anyway? To be hurt? To be abused? Screw it. I was done with that.

Rahel took me seriously, which was gratifying. "Why would you? I'm not your enemy."

"Baby, I'm no longer sure who my enemies are. My friends, either."

She laughed. It was a rich Swiss chocolate kind of sound, full of delight. "Well, you're learning."

"Whose Djinn are you?"

She shook her finger at me, still smiling. "No, no, not important, sweet one. We're past all that now. You know your enemy. It's time to fight."

"Fight what?" I snarled. "The Demon Mark? Star? Jesus, what exactly do you expect me to do? I never wanted any of this, you know. I just want-"

I just wanted David. I wanted that perfect night of peace. I wanted love with so much intensity, it brought tears to my eyes. Oh, Star. My whole soul mourned for the girl I'd known, the one I'd saved, the one I'd lost. It had happened by inches and years, and I'd never even noticed. But more than that, I mourned for me . . . for the me who had been destroyed when Bad Bob ripped away my sense of who I was in this world.

I let go of Rahel and put both hands back on the wheel. "Leave me alone."

She wasn't laughing now, or smiling, either. Whatever I'd expected to see in those hot yellow eyes, it wasn't compassion. "The thing about being alone?" she said softly. "So many choices. So many possibilities."

"Yeah, I'm fucking blessed. Want to drop me a clue about what to do next?"

She shrugged. "Whatever I tell you, you will not do it. Why should I burden you with advice for you to doubt and pick at like an unhealed sore?"

"Well, that's pretty."

She leaned back, put one foot up on the dashboard, and examined her neon-yellow toenails, which were displayed to advantage by a lovely pair of designer sandals in-of course-neon yellow. "I'm no one's Djinn, Child of Demons. As you should know by now."

"You're like David." Saying his name hurt, and hurt, and hurt, turning a razor blade in the marrow of my bones.

She shot me a narrow, amused look, and her black cornrows rustled over her shoulders as she shook her head. "Nothing like David, in fact. Nor do we share lineage."

"You both belonged to Lewis, and you're still trying to protect him, wherever he is."

She shook her head and sighed. She stroked her fingernails over her long, shapely toes, and where they touched, silver rings took form and glittered.

She examined the effect critically, cocking her head to one side. "You understand nothing. It amazes me, still. Lewis did not free David. You did."

I did? No way. No . . .

My heart thumped hard and stuttered.

Oh, God.

I had been on my knees in Bad Bob's house, fighting for my life. ... I had taken hold of an ancient wine bottle . . . and I'd smashed it into pieces.

Bad Bob's wine bottle.

Bad Bob's Djinn.

When we were fighting at the hotel, David had said, I've tried to help you, I've tried to make up for . . . for holding me down at Bob's order. For ripping away my defenses and putting the Demon Mark inside me, a kind of rape that could never heal, could never stop.

That was why he'd shadowed me. Why he'd stayed with me. Why he'd dared me, begged me, and nearly forced me to allow him to take the Mark.

Because he'd done this thing to me in the first place.

I'd been waiting for him to betray me all this time, and the truth was, he'd done it from the very first second. He'd lied to me, kept lying, was still lying about it.

I swallowed a mouthful of acid and bitter truth. "So he sent you in his place."

She sniffed. "Hardly. I have other . . . responsibilities."

"Tell me, was I ever even close? Lewis's Djinn told me to come here in the first place, or was that a lie, too?"

"The Djinn in Westchester once belonged to Lewis, it is true," Rahel said. "Freed, he serves him still. As do I. But we are limited in what we know, and what we can do."

She stared hard at her toenails, then out at the road unrolling in the headlights. Sunset was leaving the west, leaving a gorgeous trailing band of royal blue edged with early night, sprinkled with new stars. Somewhere the storm was looking for me, and I knew it would find me, if the others didn't find me first.

"So if he didn't lie to me, Lewis did come to Oklahoma."

"Yes. As I told you."

"So where is he now? And why isn't he helping me?"

She sighed, put-upon, just like the human being she almost resembled. "Fool. You have everything at hand, and still you don't read the signs. Star has used the book before, yes? To claim a Djinn, or try to do so. Lewis came to stop her."

I realized, with a hot jolt, that Star had been baiting me, trying to see if I knew where Lewis was, and if I'd come to help him stop her.

"Then where is he?" I asked. Rahel shook her head.

"You already know."

And I did. Nothing else made sense. "Star. Star has Lewis."

Rahel beamed at me as if I'd finally taken my first toddling steps. "See? You're not such a fool after all."

FIVE

Extremely violent weather is expected in and around the Oklahoma City area for the next few hours, with hail and tornadoes possible. In the event of a tornado emergency, take cover immediately.

Star had Lewis. As in, had Lewis prisoner.

The words "well and truly screwed" skipped through my mind, strewing flowers in their path.