Ill Wind

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 Dji

"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 Dji

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 Dji

"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, Dji

"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.