Ill Wind

I groaned and rolled over on my side and touched my throbbing chin. My lip was split. I explored it with the tip of my tongue, tasted fresh blood, and tried to figure out exactly what was going on.

Ah. It all came back. Star, the cookies, Lewis smacking the crap out of me.

The Code One lockdown.

I might have robbed Star and Lewis of options, but I also hadn't left myself a whole lot of room to maneuver.

Something brushed my face, light as cobwebs, and where it touched pain faded. I knew that touch, that warming sensation.

"She's awake." David's voice, stripped of emotion. I opened my eyes and saw him sitting next to me. He didn't ask how I was, or say anything directly to me, but that touch—I had to believe that it had been David who'd done that, the real David. Was it possible for him to fight for control? To go against her? If Star knew…

"About time." Star, of course; she sounded freaked, which made her sound callous. "Jesus, girl, you're not exactly one of those TV kick-ass hero chicks, are you. One punch, you're down for ten minutes. My mama could have done better."

"Get her down here, we'll go," I mumbled. I wiped a trickle of blood away from my lips and sat up.

"It's over, Star. I've already spilled the beans. They're coming for all of us. Lewis'll probably get a Demonectomy, but you, you're toast, babe. They'll hoover you so dry, you won't be able to light a match with a nuclear weapon."

She kicked me. Right in the stomach. I'd never been kicked in the stomach before, and it was not a special treat. I rolled over, pulled my knees up, and gagged through the pain. I wondered if she'd ruptured anything I couldn't live without. It would be a real bitch to end up dead, ripped up by this damn Demon I hadn't chosen, setting destruction loose on the aetheric, just because I'd taken a pointy-toed boot in the spleen.

"Don't," Lewis said. He was sitting in the corner, resting his chin on his crossed forearms.

"Don't what?" Star shot back, and paced in front of me like a crack addict on a caffeine high. "She ruined it! She brought them here… and now they know. I can't let them take me. I can't."

Watching her, I realized David had been right when he'd warned me of the corrupting effects of living with the Demon Mark. Star had taken it; she'd lived with it in secret for a long time, and it had gnawed out her soul.

It made me wonder about Lewis. He had a towering amount of ability, but I wasn't sure anymore about his soul.

I was no longer sure about mine, either.

Star whirled on David and snapped her fingers at him. "You. Get us out of here."

"Where?" he asked without moving his eyes away from me. Dark eyes, a stranger's eyes. But he was still watching me with that eerie focus, the way he had before. You don't own him completely, Star.

She growled in frustration, walked over to him, and grabbed him by the hair. She forced his head up and made him meet her eyes. "Hey. Look at me when I'm talking to you!"

He had no change of expression. If it hurt him at all, I couldn't tell. He didn't try to pull away. David, the poseable doll.

"I want to go to New York."

"Specify," he said.

She looked baffled. "Grand Central Station!"

"Specify."

He could, I sensed, play this game forever, down to making her identify the square inches of tile she wanted to plant her feet upon. Not only could she not do it, but she didn't even have the patience to try. She slammed his head backwards into the wall and let him go.

"Useless. Both of you. Unlimited power, my ass. I can't get either one of you to lift a finger." She nudged Lewis with her toe, but he didn't respond, except to close his eyes; I felt a cold shiver and wondered what she'd done to him down here, what kind of hell a man who wielded near-unlimited power could experience to break him like this.

"Hey, Star?" I asked. I sat up, pulling my back closer to the wall, and reached out to lay my hand on top of David's, squeezed it in warning. "Let's figure out how to get out of this alive. Both of us."

She turned away and stalked back to me, dropped into a crouch by my side. Her dark eyes glittered like razor-sharp obsidian. "What's your proposal?"

"Who says I have one?"

"Jo, I know you. You've always got an idea. It's usually crappy, but you always have one." For just a second, there was a flicker, a memory of what she'd been. Who we'd both once been. Oh, Star. "Remember when we built the anatomically correct snowman outside the dean's office? Not such a great plan, chica. But it had style."

I remembered. I didn't want to, because it made things harder, remembering the outrageous fun of that winter night, our breathless giggles fogging the air. She'd been so stupidly i

I had to be a worse one now. To save whatever was left of the girl I still loved.

I sucked in a breath that tasted of tears and said, "Easy. Give Lewis up. Look, he's of no use to you, anyway. He's got the Mark, and he can't give it back to you. Even if he could, he wouldn't because he knows you're raving ape-shit crazy, and he'd rather die than see what you'd do with it. You're screwed, Star. Let him go, and you win points with the Wardens."

She blew a raspberry that lifted the fine dark bangs on her forehead. "Yeah, right. That's likely to happen."

"It is if I tell them it was all my fault. I killed Bad Bob. I have the Mark. And I've been ru

She stared at me without blinking. "Yeah? And why do I believe you'll say it in the first place?"

I gave her a slow, painful smile. "Because you have something I want, Star." I looked over at David, then back to her. "Break his bottle and set him free. I'll go away like a good girl, Lewis is saved, everybody's happy."

"Not me," Star said. "Not unless I get back what I had."

I swallowed bile and said, "Then you live to scheme another day."

She frowned, grooving little lines between those fine black eyebrows, and studied me for so long, I thought she'd gone blind. "That's stupid," she finally said. "Even if I do free David, I still have the book. I can take him back any time I want. What's the point?"

"Well, that's the second part. You let him destroy the book."

She laughed. "Never happen. Let me tell you my scenario, Jo. The house burns. They find bodies. Nobody's ever sure who belongs to who, except that me and my new que lindo Dji

She played with fire on her fingertips. She stared at it, then moved it closer to my face. Closer, as if she were trying to see by the light of it.

She set my hair on fire. I resisted the urge to scream and roll around, and beat it out with the palm of my hand. The smell of it lingered between us.

"Just a sample," she said. "How'd it feel?"

I froze the air around her, so cold, I saw frost form instantly on her skin. She cried out and jerked away in panic.

"About like that does," I said. "Don't push me. I'll give you freezer burn so deep, they'll have to microwave you to hear you scream. You start this, you know we'll both die. How does that help either one of us?"