Ill Wind

I'd moved a step closer to her without even realizing it. I came to a stop, haunted by the fact that I'd always let my fondness for her blind me to just how selfish she really was.

"How'd he get the Mark?"

She glared. "He took it. I didn't give it to him. The stupid bastard said he was trying to help me. I didn't want his help!"

Her belligerent tone didn't go with the too-bright shine in her eyes. Pain in there. Deep, anguished self-loathing. She went back to scraping cookies off sheet pans, dumping them into a bowl with quick, nervous motions.

"Then let him go," I said. "You can't get the Mark back from him, you said so yourself. It goes from weaker to stronger. Nobody's stronger than Lewis. It's finished."

"No!" She almost screamed it at me, a raw physical outburst that sounded as if it scraped her throat bloody. "I'll get it back. I have to!"

"How?" I sounded so logical all of a sudden. So calm. Maybe it was just shock, but all I really felt for her in that moment was sheer, sad pity. She'd been so glorious, once. So selfless. Seeing the ruin of that… ached in ways that I'd never expected.

Her dark eyes looked blind behind the glitter of fury, but this time her voice came out soft, nearly controlled. "You gave me a way," she said. "I can't take the Mark from him, but your hot boyfriend Dji

Fear went solid and slick as glass in my throat. I tried to swallow the lump. "No, it doesn't work that way. If David takes the Mark he can't get rid of it. He'll be infested. Or worse." If her Mark was as mature as it sounded, it might just devour him instead. I'd seen a Demon hatch, before. I didn't want to ever see it again. "Give it up, Star. Please. Let me try to help, try to think of something…"

She dumped the bowl on the counter between us. "You already did think of something. You brought the damn Wardens here. If they find us, they'll take him away, take you away… and you know what they'll do to me, Jo. Gut me and leave me like I was before. A freak. Worse. A powerless freak. I can't live like that, and you know it."

"Nothing you can do to stop it now," I said. "It's too late. I'm sorry. I really am."

"Oh, there is something I can do. Nobody knows where the hell Lewis is, anyway, so it's no big thing. He disappears, you disappear… all I have to do is get rid of Maid Marion and her merry band of butchers out there. Maybe I'll get David to blow up their truck. I hate those damn SUVs, anyway, and they'll just blame it all on you." Star finished scraping cookies from the second sheet pan, dumped it, and held out the bowl to me. "Here. Have one."

"Thanks, I'd rather choke on a razor blade. Which I'm not so sure you didn't bake inside those."

She smiled, or tried to, and put the bowl down. "So. We go

I looked at her over the bowl of cookies. My friend. My sister. My ghostly reflection of what might have happened if I'd been the one in the fire that day, because I'd always known I wasn't cut out for normal human life any more than Star was.

"Guess so," I said. "Because I'm taking Lewis and David out of here."

"Thought you'd say that."

She took another bite of cookie.

Behind her, the oven exploded into a brilliant blue-white ball of flame, which raced my way.

I dropped to the floor in a crouch and tossed every oxygen molecule out of the air around me for three feet in any direction. Fire needs O2. It was an elementary tactic, but it worked; the fire blasted toward me, hit the shield of nonoxygenated air, and deflected around. The heat wasn't hard to control, either; after all, it was just molecules moving. I made them move slower.

When it was over, I wasn't even singed. I let go of the air bubble, stepped toward Star, and took a deep breath. "You know, I was feeling sorry for you," I said. "Poor little Star, all alone in that hospital, burned beyond recognition, boo-fucking-hoo. Did you ever stop to think about all those Wardens who died? Who never even made it out? Of course you didn't. Because it's just all about you."

She laughed. It was a crazy sound. She held out both hands in front of her, palms up, and intense blue-white flames danced on the skin and reflected in her dark eyes. "Yeah, like it ain't all about you, Jo. Bad Bob dumps a problem on you, and what do you do? Take off ru

"Oh, we're alike," I agreed. "See, that's why I didn't use David like some piece of Kleenex to save my skin. Because we're so fucking alike."

"You go

"I'm go

She bared her teeth. "Yeah? Look behind you."

I did.

There was a man standing there in the open doorway that must have led to the cellar of the house-tall, lanky, his face almost hidden by a growth of shaggy dark hair. He was wearing an ancient stained tie-dyed shirt and sweatpants stiff with grime. His feet were filthy. If I'd passed him on the street, I'd have dropped a dollar in his will work for food cup.

It was Lewis.

I turned around, put my hands out to my sides in the universal no-danger-here pose, and said, "Lewis? Remember me? It's Jo."

He was staring at me with eyes so wide and dark that they looked to be all pupil. Drugged, or worse. Completely mad.

He was staring at my breasts. Which was, to put it mildly, more weird than flattering in the current circumstances.

He looked up into my face, and I felt my knees turn to water at the sight of all the torment and confusion in his eyes. If Star didn't get punished for anything else she did, ever, she should be punished for this.

"Jo?" he asked, and it was an entirely normal voice, which was entirely not normal, given the way he looked. "I'm really sorry about all this. I can't stop it."

And then he walked up and slugged me, right in the face.

Fire and Weather don't go to war. We don't go to war because it's too dangerous, and we have no decisive advantages. Our powers counter each other very nicely, all the way down the line.

But when Weather fights Weather… that's when it gets nasty.

And that was exactly why I'd declared a Code One general alert, because I wanted the mystical world of the aetheric locked down tighter than a drum. A Code One calls every Warden able to respond, everywhere, to action. Locking down their patterns, whether of weather or fire or earth, in the same way you'd anchor boats in a storm or plywood your windows in a hurricane. Basically, it meant everything came to a stop.

Over Oklahoma City, the air was clear, still, and dead. Nothing was moving. Nothing could without a massive push, one large enough to toss off the controls of at least a hundred Wardens and their Dji

That wasn't likely to happen. Not even for Lewis.

Which at the moment of my opening my eyes didn't help much, because I felt like I'd been hit by a Mack Truck. I'm mostly insulated against lightning, I can sling wind and rain and hail with the best of 'em, but boxing… not my specialty.