Ill Wind

He reached out and put his hand on my hair, stroking gently. Not letting himself touch my skin. I relaxed into the touch for the sheer pleasure of it. "I know," he said. "Don't you think I want to?"



"I'm asking you," I said. "I'm asking you for a favor. You owe me one."



His hand went still, but he didn't take it away.



"Lewis?" I asked. "Please?"



The mist changed colors again, from gold to a pale green the color of spring leaves. The color change rolled across the valley slowly, in wavelike ripples.



The stick in Lewis's hand changed color, too, from dead brown to a fine, delicate tan, the wood inside showing pale as flesh. As I watched, it sprouted a single, delicate leaf. Lewis slid off the hood of the Jeep and planted the stick carefully upright in the charcoal field. I could almost feel it rooting, growing, pulsing with life.



"It might not work," he said. He might have been talking about the plant, but I knew he wasn't. "Sometimes it doesn't work at all."



"Try."



He straightened up and turned to look at me. Around him, the mist rose into the air in whispering



waves, like angels flying. It dissolved on the light of the sun, and then there was just a black valley, dead trees, a tall and graceful man standing there with his arms folded across his chest.



But the smell . . . The smell was different. Warm. Golden.



The wind smelled like life.



He nodded and said, "Let's go."



Six hours later, he was holding Star's hand, and that golden mist was moving through her, soaking into her skin, invading through her mouth and nose.



It saved her life. Lewis preserved what he could of her affinity with fire, but like me, he understood balance; to heal Star completely meant disturbing that balance beyond repair.



I don't think she ever knew he was there. When she woke up, two days later, Lewis was long gone, just a memory and a taste of gold in the air.



I never told her anything about it.



I watched the road behind us, once we were safely back in motion again, but I didn't see any lemon-yellow Djinn flying carpets in our trail. Not that she'd do anything that ridiculously Arabian Nights, of course, but when you're paranoid, staring out the back window seems like a vitally important occupation.



You're a fool. There is no saving a fool.



Whose side was Rahel on, anyway? Maybe nobody's. Certainly not mine. Choose. Choose what? Choose who? Why did the Djinn have to be so damn inscrutable, anyway? Was it just a personality flaw? I couldn't even assume she was really out to save David. In fact, as little as I actually understood about the Djinn, there was nothing I could safely assume about Rahel-I didn't even know where she stood in this strange little game.



Choose. So few choices I could make. I had the Mark. I could choose to give it to David. . . . No. I wouldn't. I couldn't.



Choose. Dammit. The only thing I had left was . . . who to trust. Well, I knew something about that, at least. I couldn't trust Marion and her people; they'd do exactly what they were told to do by the Council, up to and including killing me. David-I already trusted him, in ways I couldn't begin to regret.



But I could commit to the one person I'd been avoiding dragging into this.



"Star-" I leaned forward and touched her shoulder. Her dark hair dragged like silk on my fingers. "Star, do you know anything about the Demon Mark?"



David couldn't quite control his flinch. He stared straight ahead, but I could feel the burn of his disapproval. As for Star, she turned her head, lips parted in astonishment, and then whipped back toward the road when a truck blared a warning. On the horizon, a flock of birds broke cover and wheeled like a tornado in the graying sky.



Star nodded toward David, plainly asking. I nodded. "He knows."



"Yeah? He knows about what, exactly?"



"The Wardens. All of it."



"Really?" She cut an interested look his way, but he didn't respond. "Well. Okay, I know a little about it. Why? You got one?" She was kidding, of course.



But in answer, I eased back the collar of my shirt and dragged it down to show her the scorch mark over my left breast. She whistled. "Holy crap, Jo."



"I need to know how to get rid of it," I said.



"Obviously! Okay." She blew out an agitated breath. "Damn, girl, that's a hell of a secret to keep."



"If it's any consolation, you're the first one I've told." True, actually. I hadn't told David, he'd known all along, or guessed pretty damn well.



"How'd you get it?" She seemed pretty shaken. I guess she had a right.



"Bad Bob. He kidnapped me and-" I didn't want to describe what he'd done to me; it was too chokingly vivid. "Anyway. He died, I got the Mark."



"Holy shit. Well . . . you could give it to somebody else. That's obvious." She turned her attention back to the road, but her golden-bronze skin had taken on a paler tinge. "Mira, is that what you're looking to do? Pass it on? You know it won't go unless the person you try to give it to has more power than you do." She flicked a glance at me in the rearview mirror, and her eyes widened. "You do know that, right?"



I looked to David for confirmation; he didn't meet my gaze, which was confirmation enough. Damn. But that meant-no, that was impossible. "Star, that can't be true," I said. "Bad Bob gave this to me-you know he was one of the most powerful Wardens in the world. I can't be . . ."



If Estrella was surprised by that, she gave no sign of it. She just nodded. "Well, chica, I guess you know something about yourself you didn't know before, then."



"Bullshit!" I was, at best, a mediocre Warden. I wasn't-couldn't be-



"Straight up word of honor, Jojo. A Demon Mark can't go from stronger to weaker, only from weaker to stronger. It's a known fact. So if Bad Bob's Demon Mark traded up to you . . ." Her eyebrows rose. "Welcome to the top of the food chain. Damn, girl, I knew you were strong. I guess I never knew how strong."



"That's-"



"Impossible, yeah, you've said. But Bad Bob picked you to pass it to, so that settles that. Who else could have taken it for him? Lewis?" She made a rude noise to the road. "Right. Like anybody can find that guy. Jeez, what are you going to do? Is that why the Rangers are after you? 'Cause of the Mark?"



I rubbed my aching forehead with the heels of my hands. "Something like that. I find somebody to pass it on to. Whatever. What's the other option?"



"Well, you could, like, keep it."



"Keep it! Jesus, Star, for crying out loud-"



"Hear me out. Look, everything I know about the Demon Mark, the farther it goes into you, the stronger you get. Maybe that's a good thing. Maybe-maybe that's what you ought to do. I mean, we call it a Demon Mark, but what do we really know about it? Is it any worse than the Djinn?"



"Oh, trust me on this, it's way worse," I said, and had a grotesque sense-memory of the thing burrowing inside me, leaving that horrible violated slimy feeling in its wake.



"So you don't want to keep it."



"God, no."



Star's knuckles were white on the steering wheel. I watched her flex her fingers and shake them, one at a time. "Well, that narrows it down. I guess you need to get yourself a Djinn."



And I was back where I'd started. Helpless. Caught in the headlights of oncoming friggin' fate. I wanted to scream at Rahel, wherever she was. What fucking choice do I have?



And then Star said, shocking me down to my shoes, "Luckily, babe, I think I can help you out on that score."



My asking what Star meant got me nowhere. She just kept giving me that secret little grin and telling me to wait and see; I could see David getting wound tighter and tighter, ready to lash out. He was scared. I was scared for him. God, she couldn't know . . . could she?



We pulled off at a gas station about five miles down the road. Star went inside to pay for the gas and to grab beverages and whatever passed for food; I got out to walk around in the cooling wind, shivering. The storm that had been following me was still on my trail. I could feel it like a tingle at the edges of my mind.



I don't know if you've ever been in that part of the world, but it's flat, and it seems to go on forever. The land can't quite decide whether it's desert or scrub forest, so it sticks clumps of stubby, twisted bushes together and surrounds them with reddish dust. There's no elegance to it, but there is a certain toughness. It's land that will fight you for every drop of water, every green growing thing you want to take from it. Even though I wasn't an Earth Warden, I could feel that, feel the awesome sleeping power of it surrounding me.



I didn't expect David to touch me, so the heavy warmth of his hands on my shoulders made me tense up before I turned to face him. I was hoping that meant I was forgiven, but I could see in his eyes that I wasn't. He was fully in human mode, walled off from me, but I could sense the power in him, too.



"Why'd you tell her?" he asked me. His hands stayed on my shoulders for a few seconds, then traveled up to cup my face with heat.



I thought of Rahel. "Because it's the only choice I've had this whole trip that's really my own. I need to trust somebody."



"Then trust me."



"I do." I looked up into his eyes and wished he trusted me-I could feel that reserve in him again, that doubt. "I need help, David. You know that. If I can't get to Lewis-if he can't or won't let me get to him-I need help to fight off whatever's after me. Whether that's Marion, or some other bastard I don't even know ... I can't do it alone." And after it was out, I knew how that sounded.



"Is that what you are?" he asked. "Alone?"



I can be a real bitch sometimes, without even meaning to. He let me go, stepped back to minimum safe distance, and shoved his hands in the pockets of his long olive coat.



"So it's you and Star against the world," he said. "That how it's going to be? Maybe she can even provide a Djinn for you. One that you don't know, so it won't be like eating your own pet dog."



"Don't say that, dammit. I'm trying to change the rules of the game. I have to. The deck's stacked against us."



"I already changed the rules. Look how much good it's done."



Apparently, Djinn were capable of morning-after regrets, too. "Fine. New rules. Rule number one: Let me do this my way. You've been herding me from one place to another ever since I left Westchester. You've been trying to tell me what to do, when to do it. And I can't live that way, David. I need to-"



"To what?" He glared at me, and I saw orange sparks flicker in his eyes. "To make yourself a target? Tell the world you have the Demon Mark? Trust your friend to protect you?"



I watched his eyes. "You don't like her."



He stepped toward me, intimate and aggressive. "I don't trust her. I don't trust anybody with your life."



"Not even me?"



He growled in the back of his throat and stalked off toward the convenience store, where Star was paying for a stack of bottled water and portable calories. She was laughing with the cashier about something, but when she turned to wave at me, I saw the cashier watching her, studying her scars. Everybody did. She had to know that, had to feel it all the time. She had to resent it, even if she never showed it on the surface. God. Could I have managed that? No. Never.



She hip-bopped the door open and came out with her armload of goodies. I grabbed some that were toppling and looked over her shoulder. The cashier was staring.



"Is he checking me out?" she asked.



"Uh-huh." I didn't tell her the look wasn't so much admiration as there-but-for-the-grace-of-God fascination.



Star gave me her two-sided comedy-tragedy smile. "I'm telling you, chica, guys dig scars. Makes 'em think I'm tough."



I opened the passenger door and dumped the load in David's seat. Let him sort it out. "News flash, babe, you are tough. Toughest girl I ever met."



"Damn straight." She offered me a fist. I tapped it. She raised her voice for David. "Yo, boy, let's motor!"



He was watching the horizon. Clouds were creeping out there, doing something stealthy that sounded like barely more than a low mutter in Oversight. Too far off to concern us yet, but it was definitely my old friend the storm, coming back for more. The wind belled out his coat and snapped it behind him. I walked over.



"When she says boy, I think she means you," I said. He squinted into the distance behind his glasses.



"I got the point."



"And?"



He gave me a long, wordless look, then went back to the Land Rover, picked up the water and fast food, and sat himself in the passenger side. I climbed into the back. As Star shut the door, she looked quickly at David, then at me.



"Don't mean to get in the middle, but is there something I should know?" she asked.



"No." We both said it instantly, simultaneously. It couldn't have been more obvious we were lying.



"O . . . kay." She put the Land Rover in gear and rolled the big boat out to the freeway. "You down with my plan?"



"Star, I have no idea what plan you're talking about."



She accelerated the truck and slid smoothly in between a red rollover-prone SUV and a station wagon held together with duct tape and baling wire. "The one where I save your ass, babe."



"I'm still waiting for a plan. That's an outcome."



"Picky, picky . . . Okay, here's the deal. I have a source in Norman who can put us in touch with an honest-to-God masterless Djinn. You know, the kind running around, ready to be claimed. Sound good to you?"



I didn't dare look at David. He handed me a water bottle, and I cracked the plastic ring and sucked down lukewarm liquid. It tasted like sweat, but my body was shiveringly grateful.



"Sure," I said. "Sounds fabulous."



Norman, Oklahoma, was just twenty miles from Oklahoma City proper, but Star was making caution her new religion; we drove just about every cowpath and haypicker road in the county, watching for any sign Marion or her folks were on to us. Nothing. By the time we exited I-35 and crossed into Norman's city limits, it was getting close to sundown, and the burritos and bottled water were just a fond, gut-rumbling memory.



Norman's an old town, a strange mixture of prewar buildings and hypernew neon. The local college ensured a steady parade of coffee shops, clothing boutiques, used CD emporiums, and bookstores.



"Who's your source?" David asked. He upended his water and drained the last few drops from blue plastic; I wondered if he was really thirsty, if he even really felt such mundane things as hunger and thirst. He'd eaten with me that first afternoon, I remembered. And in the diner. Maybe he was more flesh than spirit, after all. And hey, sex? Pretty much of the flesh.



"Excuse me?" Star asked.



"Your source. The one who told you about the Djinn."



"Friend," she said, which was no more illuminating than anything else she'd said for the past two hours. "Which is all you need to know, seeing as how you're not in the Wardens." She reached out and passed her hand over his. No glyphs lit up on his palms. "Speaking of which, Jo, you owe me an explanation about how you and this cutie got together."



She gave him a look that reminded me Star wasn't all fun and games; she'd once been a Warden, tough and very strong. Even if she didn't have full command of her power anymore, she could be dangerous. And focused.



"Joanne told me." David pointed a thumb back over the seat at me. "Not that I believe any of this, anyway. But it makes a good story."



"Yeah?" Star's trademark smile flashed. "You planning to write it up, print it in the newspaper?"