Cape Storm

His gaze was fixed on me, and he crossed the distance fast, although he didn’t appear to be in a hurry. Even so, it still seemed to take forever before his hands touched me—a gentle stroke from my shoulders down my bare arms, to my wrists, then back up to cup my face. My whole body hummed and relaxed into the sensation. At close range, David’s eyes were both less and more human—less human in color and more human in content. He was worried.

He had good reason to be.

“How are you holding up?” he asked me. His voice was low and intimate, like the warmth of his body near mine. “Any pain?”

“Nope,” I said. “Nothing I can’t handle.”

His gaze held mine, searching. Waiting. I was dimly conscious of Cherise standing a few feet away, doing the awkward dance of exclusion from an intimate moment. With no key card of her own, she’d have to wait.

“I promise, if I feel anything change, you’re the first to know,” I told him, and put my hands on him, because I couldn’t notput my hands on him. I stepped forward and folded myself against his chest, and his arms closed over me, holding me close. I felt his lips brush my hair, a butterfly touch that made my heart skip.

“Let me check the mark,” he said. I shook my head. “Jo. Let me see it.”

“It’s fine.”

“Jo.”

I sighed and backed up a step, then turned so my back was facing him. His fingers touched my shoulder and moved down and in, pushing back the fabric and moving the strap of my bra aside to look at the thingon my shoulder blade.

It looked like a black torch tattoo. I knew that, because I’d spent enough time staring at it in pocket mirror reflections. It was the parting gift of my old boss, Bad Bob Biringanine—or what was left of him, anyway. He’d once been one of the most powerful Wardens in the world, but he’d gotten it illegally, the way some athletes abuse steroids. His particular poison was a Demon Mark—he’d volunteered himself as a host for a gestating Demon, and in return it had given him all the power he needed.

Until it was done with him, at least. I wasn’t sure that what was currently walking around in his skin had much in common with the original Bad Bob.

Bad Bob had also given mea Demon Mark—unwillingly—and eventually I’d gotten rid of it. I never wanted to feel Bad Bob’s sticky, foul fingers pulling my strings again; the very thought of it made my skin crawl and made me long for a shower and a steel scrub brush.

David’s gentle touch slid over the black torch mark, and it was as if his fingers disappeared as they passed across the dead space of it. I couldn’t feel the pressure at all. Then his touch was back, real and warm, on the other side of the numbed spot.

“It’s still contained,” he said. His voice was very quiet, meant only for my ears. “If you start to feel anything—”

I already had felt something—that sickening longing for destruction as I’d watched the storm. I knew it was bleed-over from the black tattoo . . . but I couldn’t make myself tell him, either.

“Yeah, I know, yell for help.” I hated being helpless. Hatedit. But somehow, Bad Bob had found a way to strip away my defenses, and I couldn’t fight this thing. Not on my own. David could help, at least for now. He wasn’t making any guarantees long-term, though. We needed to get to Bad Bob and make the evil old son of a bitch take the thing off of me.

Or kill him. That’d work, too. I hoped. Though I had to admit, it hadn’t worked too well the last time I’d thought I put him in the ground.

I tugged my bra strap back in place and turned to face my lover. No— husband.I had to get used to that. Husband.We’d had the wedding ceremony, kind of. It had been interrupted by various attacks, but I thought we were married, anyway. I just didn’t feelmarried. “So, you’ve been AWOL most of the morning.”

“Busy,” he said, which was uninformative, as explanations go. His shoulders lifted and fell, as if he knew what I was thinking. “Dji

Which meant none of mine. “So what’s the plan? You guys coming with?”

“Some are,” David said. “This is obviously our fight as well as yours. He has Rahel prisoner. Even Ashan agrees that we can’t let this go without an answer.”

Just as David was in charge of the New Dji

Most Dji

He and David got along about as well as you’d expect, when they were actually talking at all.

“And is the great Ashan going to grace us with his presence?” I asked. I wasn’t exactly looking forward to it.

“He’ll be around,” David answered, which was a typically Dji

“ Four?He did get the memo, right? World ending, danger, et cetera?”

“Four of his most powerful,” David clarified. “One of them is Ve

Oh. Well, that was all right, then; Ve

She liked to walk around in the guise of a child, but in no way could you classify Ve

David looked over my shoulder, and I followed his gaze. There at the other end of the hallway stood Ve

Ve

I waved back. Ve

“I’ve brought ten of the New Dji

“In case something happens, I’ve also left someone at Jonathan’s house who can take over as Conduit, at least temporarily.”

David, in other words, had made arrangements in the event of his own death. Jonathan’s house—Jonathan had been his friend, and the leader of the Dji

If David thought this was dire enough to name a successor and stash him away in the ultimate Undisclosed Location, then things were really not at all good.

“David—” I didn’t know what I wanted to say, except that I wanted it to all be okay. For once.

His fingers squeezed mine, very lightly. “I know,” he said. “But we’re in this together. For life. Whatever may happen.”

He meant it.

My husband.