Ill Wind

The lights flickered and died, and in the ghostly whisper of the fan spi

"Then rest," he said.

I woke up in the passenger seat, belted firmly in place, cramped in places I hadn't known I had muscles. The clock made no sense. My mouth tasted like the bottom of a fish tank, and I needed to pee so badly, it hurt.

"What…." I mumbled. David was driving. "Thought you couldn't drive."

"I lied," he said. "Dji

I muttered something about his mother under my breath—did Dji

"Wait a minute," I said. "I've been asleep for only thirty minutes?"

He didn't answer.

"Oh. Twelve and a half hours."

"We're an hour outside Tulsa," he said. "We should be nearing Oklahoma City."

There was a brilliant blaze of light on the horizon, like frozen gold smoke against the cloudy sky. Still light rain falling, but when I checked Oversight, I found everything even and steady. No storms chasing me, for a change.

"Let's stop," I said.

David glanced aside at me. "Where?"

"Anywhere with a bathroom."

"I'll find something."

I nodded and ran my hands through my hair. That didn't cut it. I hunted around in Marion's glove compartment, came up with a brush, and attacked the tangles in my hair until it was shiny and smooth. Nothing much I could do about my generally gritty condition, but Marion had also left behind some nice wintergreen gum that took care of evening breath. I was starting to feel caffeine deprived, but just about the time I thought about complaining, a sign appeared in the distance: loves. The billboard text underneath Said GAS—FOOD—BATHROOMS.

"Miracles provided," David said. I froze for a second, then remembered to breathe. Surely he didn't know that was Bad Bob's tag line. Surely.

At exactly 9 p.m. we pulled into a parking lot big enough to hold at least thirty or forty long-haul rigs; it was a little more than half full. Oklahoma was having a damp spring, it seemed; the clouds overhead were inoffensive nimbus, spitting light rain, and we hurried inside to a warm, well-lit vestibule. On one side was a convenience store, on the other, a traditional sit-down diner; straight ahead was the sign for bathrooms. I left David to his own amusements and headed for the relief station. On the way, I ran across a gleaming bank of pay phones, and I remembered something I'd forgotten to do.

Star. I'd meant to call Star and tell her I was coming.

I picked up the handset and thought about it for a while, hung up, then finally completed the call. She wasn't there, but her answering machine took my message. Coming into town tonight or tomorrow. See you soon.

I hoped I would, anyway. I was feeling desperately alone. I wanted to count on David, but I was such a danger to him…. It was like traveling with someone bent on suicide. If I said the wrong thing, got desperate… I had to be on my guard. Always.

When I came back, I found David sitting at a table in the diner, contemplating a menu. He had a cup of steaming coffee in front of him. I gestured at the waitress for the same and picked up my own copy of the house specials.

"Any ideas?" I asked.

I got a quick flash of copper eyes over the top of the menu. "A few," he said. It sounded neutral, but his eyes weren't. They were verging on Dji

"Get stuffed." I studied choices. The waitress— who, amazingly enough, had pink hair to go with her pink uniform—delivered my coffee, and I made an instant decision. "I know it's weird, but I want breakfast. Got any blueberry muffins?"

"Sure," she shrugged. "What else?"

"Pancakes. And bacon."

Pink hair nodded. "For you, handsome?"

David shrugged. "The same." She folded our menus and was gone in a flash of a cotton-candy skirt.

Which left us looking at each other in uncomfortable silence.

"You have to stop," David said at last. "You're ru

"I've got you," I pointed out.

"Do you?" A flash of hot-metal temper in his eyes. "Not unless you say the words."

There was no way to answer that, and I didn't try. I looked down at my hands, adjusted the silverware into neat rows, and finally sipped coffee.

"You're a fool," he finally said, and sat back. "Marion's hunters will be coming for you, and how will you fight them?"

"Same way I already did."

"The Mark is taking you over. It's moving slowly, but it's moving. It's filtering into your thoughts, your actions—that's why you won't take what I'm offering. It isn't because you care about me. It's because the Demon won't allow it."

He touched a nerve I didn't think was raw. "Shut up," I snapped. "Enough. We're going on to Oklahoma City. I've got friends there. Besides, Lewis will know what to do."

He leaned across the table and fixed me with those eerie, inhumanly beautiful eyes. "What if he doesn't?"

"Then I guess Marion's people are going to get a big surprise when they try to give me a power-ectomy."

He sat back as the waitress slid plates of food between us. We ate in silence, avoiding each other's gazes like old married folks.

When we were finished, there was still a basket of blueberry muffins between us. I asked for a sack and bagged them up. Not like there was a chance in hell I'd live to starve to death, but still. Reflex.

We got back in the Land Rover and drove into the surreal yellow glow of Oklahoma City.

I don't suppose anybody ever forgets how they lose their virginity. I certainly can't forget. And, of course, it involved a storm.

Rain is a mixed blessing when you're in college. Everybody likes rain, to a point, but when you're trudging around campus, soaked to the skin and looking like something the Red Cross would put on a poster, it loses its charm. So there I was—cold, wet, eighteen, and a virgin. Yes, really, eighteen. I wasn't saving myself or anything noble like that; the simple fact was that I thought most guys who wanted to drag me into the backseat were losers, and I had more standards than hormones.

College was different. Here I was at this great school, with all its rich history and good-looking young men, and even better, I was in a program that not only didn't punish me for my weirdo status, it valued me. After four months, I was blooming. Putting away the baggy shirts and shapeless sweatpants, indulging in clingy, flirty clothes my mother wouldn't approve of.

That was how it happened: clingy, flirty shirt, tight blue jeans, and a storm.

I came into the Microclimate Lab blown on a cold gust of wind, dropped my backpack to the floor with a squish, and leaned against the wall to catch my breath. My lab partner was already there and looking so dry and comfortable, I knew he hadn't been out of the building all day.

"It's about time," he said. "You're thirty minutes late. We've got to map the pressure streams and have all this done for Yorenson by noon tomorrow—"

He was turning around, and about the time he got to that part of the sentence, he saw me standing there and stopped talking. I wiped water out of my eyes and saw him staring at me. Well, not at me, exactly. At my chest.