Ill Wind

This was real. The fire trucks flashing their lights at the curb—they were real. The firefighters aiming hoses at the destruction that had once been Star's house—that was real, too.

There were bones in the basement. I could see them, shining in the charred wood.

"Can she hear me?" someone asked, and I looked in the basement but there was no one there. "Jo, can you hear me?"

I focused and found there was someone right in front of me. He was heavy with flesh and wildly bright inside, and I wanted to reach out and sink into the fevered warmth of him but I knew, somehow, that it would be bad. And not just for him.

I blocked out the incredible glow of his spirit and focused on the real, the skin, the face. "Lewis?"

He nodded. He was still ragged and badly dressed, but his eyes were clear. His soul was clear. If the Demon Mark had left him tainted, I couldn't see where, or how. How strong was he, to survive that?

"You know what you did?" he asked. I didn't, but I had no idea how to express it; evidently, he read it in my eyes. "You took the Mark from David. Two can't exist in the same body. They destroyed each other."

Ah. That would explain why I felt so empty, so full, so weightless, so powerful. I'd inherited something. But I didn't feel… well, evil. Just vast.

"Can she hear me?" Lewis asked, looking past me. David was so warm against me, anchoring me against all the random currents that tried to pull me away. The smoke on the air, the heat rising off the fire—all so beautiful. Couldn't begin to believe how beautiful it all was.

"I think so," David said. "Jo. Concentrate. Make yourself flesh."

I didn't know what that meant, either, until I did it, and then suddenly there was flesh around me, and it was hurting, and I went to my knees and took David down with me.

Make myself flesh. Wait, what had I just been before?

"What happened?" I whispered. My lips felt dry, as if I'd never tasted water. "Star…"

"Star's dead," Lewis said. "She started the fire. I couldn't get her out—she wouldn't leave without the book."

The book was gone. That was… good? Wasn't it?

Lewis reached out and touched my face, then jerked back and shook his hand as if it was burned. Sucked his fingers. "She's hot."

"She can't control it yet," David said. "She'll learn."

This didn't make any sense. Nothing made any sense. "What happened?"

David's hand stroked the side of my face, down my neck, my shoulder. He folded me closer. My skin yearned toward his touch.

"You died," he said. "I felt you go. You'd taken part of me inside you with the Demon Mark. When your body—was destroyed—"

I remembered the bones in the ashes and shivered. No wonder the graceful ivory curves had fascinated me.

"I died," I said. "It killed me."

"I can't bring back the dead," David was saying. "No one can."

I felt a flash of my old humor. "Still here, though."

"Yes." He turned me in his arms to face him, and his eyes were bright, joyous copper, hotter than the sun, and I saw myself in them. A creature of fire. A black-haired, pale-ski

A Dji

"I can't bring back the dead," he repeated. "But I can create a new life in my image."

He'd made me a Dji

"Oh, shit," I said.

David's smile was hot enough to burn the world. "That's not exactly how we put things, on this side."

"Why not?"

His eyebrows quirked up. "You know, I guess nobody ever asked that before."

His arms folded around me, and I felt myself burning, and burning, and now it didn't hurt at all.

There was nothing left of Star's house but cinders, by the time it was all done. There was a reason for that: Star had started the fire, but Shirl, Erik, and Marion had kept it blazing hotter than any normal fire could have sustained on its own. The firefighters had wasted tons of good Oklahoma water on the conflagration, but the Wardens had agreed that there shouldn't be any trace left—not of the book, of Star, or of any mortal remains.

It was quite a scene, on that Oklahoma City street in the fierce light of dawn. In and around the frantic fire department efforts, there was another agency at work, this one lots more powerful and lots more chaotic. By 8 a.m., there were nineteen Wardens on the scene—Marion and her team of eight, including Shirl and Erik; Sector and Regional Wardens for the area; State Wardens from anyplace close enough to matter… and Martin Oliver, National Warden.

They'd all come looking for Lewis, and this time, he let them find him. On his terms, for a change.

Oliver's first action was to authorize removal of the Code One I'd put in place; all around the world, air began to move, weather to breathe, the planet to flex its cramped muscles.

His second was to declare me a hero. Okay, a dead hero, but still. I might actually get my memorial plaque up on the Association walls after all.

I stood on the sidelines with David, learning how to be invisible—or unseeable. It took some doing, staying out of the way of people who had no idea you existed, but I was getting the hang of it. Staying in flesh was harder; there was so much to do, so much to feel, and the currents of the world kept pulling at me like they were playful children.

"We should go," David finally said. Lewis was okay. He was huddled with Martin Oliver, a blanket over his shoulders, looking weary but far from the mess he'd been earlier. "You can see him later."

I slid my hand into David's. "Go where?"

"Anywhere," he said. "We're free."

I found myself staring at the Viper. Mona was still parked at the curb, crowded by emergency vehicles. I wished I'd parked her farther down the street, so that I could sneak her out of here….

Something electric and wild snapped inside me, like an internal shock.

The Viper vanished.

"Hey!" David yelped. I looked down the block. There Mona sat, gleaming metallic blue, ready to run. David stared at the mass of people, looking for any sign somebody had noticed. Lucky for me, there were only a couple, and one of them was drunk off his ass swilling Schlitz Malt Liquor from a quart bottle. The other one must have convinced himself he'd swallowed too much smoke; he just shook his head and moved on.

How many miracles happened every day, right in front of people? Unbelievable.

I felt a grin spreading over my face, filling me with delight. "Man, that is so damn cool."

"Yeah. And… try not to do it without asking first, would you?"

We walked down the block, and as we dodged around two cops taking statements from some neighbors still in pajamas, we saw we had a visitor leaning against the Viper.

Rahel. She'd changed colors to an electric shade of green—pantsuit, hair beads, and nail polish all matched. Her eyes were still fierce hunting-hawk gold, and as she looked at me, I read something like pride in her expression.

"Well," she said. "I see you made your choice, Snow White."

I'd always wondered why she called me that, and now I looked at the reflection of my flesh-form in the window of the Viper, and saw the midnight-black hair, the flawless white skin, the pale silver eyes. Snow White. As I watched, my lips grew fuller and redder.

Rahel laughed. "See? I knew you had it in you."

"You could've told me everything from the begi

She shrugged. "I'm a Dji