I shouted a no, but Alice was already moving, reaching out for me and I couldn't move backwards fast enough. I tripped over a threadbare Persian carpet and fell against a table as her small pale hand reached out toward me . . .
. . . and David intercepted her, stiff-armed her back. Alice flinched from him and tried to come around the other side. David put himself in the middle and held her off. Star, standing off to the side, quietly watching, said nothing at all.
"Call her off!" I ordered. Star raised her hands and let them fall. "Star, dammit, call her off. This is crazy!"
"Can't," she said. "Three wishes. I'm out of here, babe. Better let it happen."
She waved to Alice, and instantly disappeared. With the book.
I yelled at David to hold Alice and I darted for the no admittance door at the back, where Cathy had gone. A blur streaked toward me, blue and white, and I slammed the door against it and stumbled back into boxes that tumbled over and spilled gaudy romance novels to the floor in a spray of heaving breasts and manly thews. I slipped on one and bruised my knee so hard, I saw red pulsing dots.
Alice blew through the door like it wasn't even there and reached out for me, and even while she did, I saw the terror in her eyes, the horror, the desperation. She knew what this meant. Eternal torment for her. And yet . . . she had no choice.
A blur of hot bronze collided with her and sent her off course, and I managed to clamber back to my feet and run down the narrow, dusty hallway. Pretty much useless, running, but I was out of options.
No. Wait. I wasn't. I sucked down gulps of air and tried to focus around the panic that was jackhammering my heart.
Alice got free of David again and flashed toward me. I stopped, turned, and put out my hands as if I might grab her in turn . . . . . . and called the wind.
It blew down the narrow corridor, swirling, ripping, tearing covers and ripping books into blizzards, hit Alice and tumbled her helplessly backwards. David, too. They both dropped from vapor into heavier flesh, but I just called more power, whipped the wind faster. The walls creaked around me, and the far door blew open with a splintering crash, spilling hurricane forces out into the bookstore where racks blew over and paperbacks were sent flying.
In my chest, something ignited. Sent feeders of blackness threading through my aching body.
I couldn't control it anymore. The wind ripped free of me, became wild and alive and dark, became a lover whispering over me, stroking my hair and pressing against me like a living thing.
David was screaming something into the wind at me. Telling me something I didn't want to hear. Something about the Demon Mark. It didn't matter. Not anymore. I could keep him away, could blow sweet little Alice back to Wonderland, could reduce this miserable little store to sticks and splinters. And I wanted to. God, I wanted all this filth to go away, quit clinging to me, quit holding me back from what I was becoming. Sticks and splinters, that was so easy. Bodies in the way? Hamburger. Gobbets of flesh, ground up between steel and stone.
Somebody was trying to stop me. They weren't doing very well, but they were trying. I opened my eyes and squinted through flying debris and saw someone standing against the wall, holding on to an iron bar for dear life. Her short brown hair blew out like a thistle, crackling with static and potential energy.
Cathy Ball. I blinked and went up into Oversight. She was scared, streaked in blacks and grays and hot liquid yellows, but she was fighting me.
I didn't have to stop. It would have been easy not to. But looking at her, so small against all the power burning in me, against the black writhing nest of the Demon Mark that was feeding and consuming and growing ... I knew I had to try.
I let the wind fall. Alice, single-minded as ritual demanded, lunged for me.
"Stop!" Cathy commanded her, and she did, as suddenly as if physics had no meaning for her. Frozen in time.
"Tell her not to take the Mark," I said. Cathy's face went pallid. "Tell her."
"Don't take the Mark," she whispered. Alice relaxed, and the blue eyes filled up with emotion again-resentment, fear, relief, anguish. All hidden the instant she turned back to her master.
It didn't take Cathy long to get a handle on what was going on, or what we were all risking. She glanced at David just once, then focused on me and said, "Get your Demon Marked ass out of my store."
I swallowed a spark of anger. "I'll pay for-"
"You won't do a goddamned thing except get the hell gone!" she shouted, and her face flushed red with the release of tension and fear. I didn't try to apologize. There was no apologizing for what I'd done, or what I'd almost done, or what had almost been done to her Djinn.
Cathy watched me walk to the splintered, gaping door, out into the ruined bookstore. As I stumbled over broken racks and scattered books, I heard her say to her Djinn in a disgusted, shaking voice, "Help me clean this mess up, will you?"
I made it outside before the panic attack hit me.
Well, this was about as low as I could go. On my hands and knees, shivering, gasping, crying like a baby. My whole body ached from the force of it, the need to get rid of the thing inside me and-worse- the horrible feeling of betrayal and grief.
Star wasn't who I thought. Maybe she hadn't ever been the person I'd thought she was. All this time I'd been believing in her, in our strong and unshakable friendship, and for all I knew, that had all been a lie, too.
Star had made a deal, quite literally, with the Devil. Like Bad Bob, she'd opened herself, and something had crawled inside . . . and nobody, not even me, had known the difference.
I felt David's hands on my shoulders and leaned back against him. So much comfort in his touch, and I didn't even know why. Why I trusted him, when I knew better . . . They'd all betrayed me, even Lewis. He'd told me to come here, but where the hell was he when I needed him? I'd trusted Star. I'd trusted Bad Bob.
How could I ever trust David? I barely knew him.
"Get up," he said, and helped me to my feet. "You have to go. Quickly."
I couldn't. It was done, it was over, there wasn't anything left in me.
He half pushed, half carried me to the Land Rover. As he did, the timer on the outside sign for Ball's Books clicked on and lit us up in a cool yellow glow. Amazingly, from the street, you couldn't tell a thing had happened inside the store. The plate glass windows were intact, and the front part of the store still looked normal.
"I'm not going anywhere," I said numbly. David opened the door of the Land Rover.
"Yes, you are," he said. "I want you to drive. Go as far and as fast as you can. Don't let anything stop you. If Lewis is still out here, he'll find you." He captured my face between those large, warm hands. "Jo. Please. Last chance. Let me take the Mark."
"No," I whispered. "I can't. Please don't ask me again."
"I won't." He looked up at a flash of lightning. "You have to go. Now."
I tasted the tang of ozone, smelled the hot burn on the air. Power calls to power. I'd stirred up the aetheric, and that would help the storm that was hunting me. He was right. I had to go. If I stayed here, innocent people would suffer.
"What about you?" I asked. "David?" I took his hands and held them tight. "You're coming with me?"
The look on his face. If I'd ever had any doubt about how deeply Djinn could feel ... "I can't. She knows what I am, and she has the book. If you won't claim me-"
"She will," I finished, and felt my skin pebble into gooseflesh at the idea. "No. You can't let that happen."
He smiled at me, very slightly, and ran his thumb across my lips. "I can't prevent it."
I could feel the nightmare closing in on me, clocks ticking, hearts racing, sands running out. I was dying and living and running all at once, and there was a storm inside me, black with thunder, white with lightning, and rain crawled in my veins.
He put his hand over the Mark. It didn't help. The storm didn't stop. Even when he kissed me-a long, gentle, lingering kiss that had the taste of good-bye.
"Remember me," he whispered, with his lips still touching mine. "No matter what happens."
I felt him melt away like mist, and when I reached out to touch his face, it was gone; there was nothing but the memory of him in my fingers and the taste of him burning my lips.
I screamed and screamed and screamed into the wind, but he didn't come back.
I drove the Land Rover out of town at high speed, not caring if anyone saw me; not caring about much of anything, really. Star would find me. Marion would find me. Hell, it really didn't matter who found me anymore, because it was all coming apart, I was coming apart, and David was gone.
Something flickered at the corner of my eye as I made the turn onto I-35, heading south for the Texas border. I had a stowaway in the passenger seat. Unseeable is easier than invisible, David had told me.