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I gasped in a breath. Another. The air felt warm, smelled faintly of ozone.
The Demon is of the darkness. Use your light.
I opened my eyes and there, in front of me, was the Dji
Breathe in your strength, it said again, and when I inhaled, I felt the fire go into me, burning like raw lava down my throat, into the darkness.
Now go.
I was outside in the rain, in the cold, with my arms wrapped around my body, shivering. The surf pounded the dome house, sucked at it like a tasty treat. Overhead, the eye of the storm whirled and stared down on me.
Inside me, the Demon Mark shuddered and went quiet.
I breathed out mist and steam, and around me the energy levels faded. Lightning flashed, hit close, and I felt the burn of ozone on my flesh like the heat of a distant cold sun.
And then I slammed back down, hard, into reality. Cold, wet, windy reality, the storm screaming over tortured waves, the stench of burning and dead things and my sweat. There was something inside me, stuck inside me. I ripped open my shirt, expecting to find—something—some horrible black tangle under the skin. There was only a faint, intricate black scorch mark. I touched it, trembling, and felt the thing underneath stretch and murmur in its sleep.
I went to my knees, hard, and threw up.
I don't know how long I was there, huddled near the ruins of Bad Bob's house, but I felt the Wardens when they arrived—Janice Langstrom, Bad Bob's exec, and Ulrike Kohl. Ulrike concentrated on the storm raging out at sea, but I could have told her it was useless; the storm was mine, keyed to me, born of my fury. All she could do was tame it down to a sullen retreat.
It was Janice who found me. "Joa
I opened my mouth to tell her… and then didn't. I couldn't even begin. Something in me—that wily, scared-to-death primitive part of my brain—told me that if I said anything about the Demon Mark, I could kiss my ass good-bye.
I just shivered.
She searched my face, her frown deepening; she was an older woman, younger than Bad Bob but not by much. Moderately powerful. Extremely perceptive.
"That storm has your smell all over it," she said, and her grip on my arm tightened. "Where is he? Where's Bob?"
I didn't answer. I saw the blooming of anger in her cool gray eyes, and then there was a wind-torn shout from the ruins of Bad Bob's house, and Ulrike staggered out.
"He's dead!" she screamed.
Cold gray eyes snapped back to me and narrowed. The grip on my arm was as tight as a vise. "You killed him?" she asked, and didn't wait for the answer. "You killed him!"
She shoved me backwards. I felt energy gathering around her, phasing in blacks and reds. No, I couldn't fight her. Couldn't fight anyone.
I couldn't control this thing inside me, and it wanted to fight.
I reached out and physically shoved her, and ran like the Demon itself was after me.
Miraculously, Delilah was still untouched, up on the road. I jumped in, started her up, and hit the gas, spi
I had killed Bad Bob. Bad Bob was a legend, and I was the one who'd called the storm. The Wardens wouldn't listen to what I had to say; if they could sense this thing inside me, they'd cut me apart to destroy it.
I had to get rid of it. Bad Bob had passed it to me. The idea of passing it on made me sick. Everything I'd ever read about Demon Marks had the same grim message attached: no way to get it out of you once it was in, except by giving it to some other poor bastard, the way Bad Bob had given it to me. God, no.
I can't afford to put my Dji
I could give it to a Dji
It all came together in a brilliant flash in my head.
Lewis. I could get one from Lewis.
It was dead silent in the Land Rover when I finished. David wasn't looking at me. He wasn't looking anywhere, exactly, just staring straight ahead. I couldn't tell what he was thinking.
"Now you know," I said. "You know what you're risking just being around me. Because I swear to God, David, I can't have this thing get loose again the way it did on the beach. I'll kill myself first."
"No!" He lunged at me, and I almost ran the truck off the road. He held up his hands, more to stop himself than to reassure me. "You can't. Listen to me, you ca
"Well, I can't let it just destroy everything, either! I have to control it, or get rid of it. Or die."
David sucked down a deep breath. "If you die with the Mark, the Demon will tear itself from your body, and it will walk the aetheric. If that happens, the destruction you saw before will be nothing next to what it can accomplish in its aetheric form. It will take more power than all of you have to stop it then."
"Well, I'm not just passing it on to somebody like the goddamn herpes virus." He was watching me with that creepy intensity again. "What?"
"Give it to me," he said. "Say the words, bind me, and give it to me. You can. You have to."
"No!" The idea gave me chills. Worse than chills. I had no idea what the Demon Mark would do to a Dji
"It can't overcome me," he said. "It'll be trapped inside of me, forever."
"It'll destroy you!"
"No worse than it will you, in time," he said. "I can be contained. Once I'm sealed inside a bottle and put back in the vault, I'm no danger to anyone. You—"
"No!" I shouted, and slammed my hands on the steering wheel like I wanted to beat sense into him. "No, dammit, I said no!"
David was so very reasonable, so convincing. "I'm what you were looking for. I'm a Dji
I felt tears burning in my eyes, couldn't get my breath around the lump of distress in my throat. God, no. Yes, it was what I wanted, and I couldn't do it. Couldn't. There had to be something else, some other way….
"I'll find Lewis," I whispered. My head was pounding from the force of my misery. I wanted to cry, or scream, or just whimper. "He'll know what to do."
"Why?" David's voice was so soft, so reasonable.
I felt a surge of absolute panic, because I realized… realized I didn't know. Why would he know any better than I did? Lewis was more powerful, all right— more powerful than anybody. That didn't mean he could save me, except by presenting me with the same choice I had right now. Destroying someone else. A Dji
"I'm so tired—" It came out of me in a rush, uncontrolled. "I can't think about it. Not now."
"You have to," David whispered. "Let's just get this over with."
The car lurched, sputtered, and coasted to a stop. Dead.
"No," I whispered. "I won't let you… take it…" I'd fight him with my last breath, if I had to. I wouldn't be the cause of his destruction. If there was any right thing left in my life…