Please stop.
Be thou bound to my service.
I felt the David I'd known snuff out like a candle, his personality and presence obliterated by the bonding.
He was Star's.
His eyes shifted spectrums, became a dark, lightless brown.
She took the book away from him and put it down, and his gaze followed her with the unsettling attention and devotion he'd once given me.
"He's lost," Rahel said. Her voice had turned ice cold, hard enough to cut. "Trust him no more. He cannot go against her."
She let the illusion snap to darkness. I felt my knees give way and sank down in the grass again. I rested my forehead against my braced knees.
Rahel's hand rested briefly on my shoulder. Comfort? I don't know. But it did give me strength. I fought off the weight of panic in my chest and blinked against tears. My face felt hot, my skin too tight.
"I don't understand," I said. "Why is she doing this?"
"She doesn't have the Mark anymore," Rahel said. She crouched down, fluid as a shadow, to look me in the face. "She must have something to fill her emptiness."
"Then where did the Mark-?"
The answer was in her sad, furious, outraged eyes.
"Oh, God," I breathed. "Lewis tried to save her. He took it from her. And now she wants it back."
"Now you see," Rahel said soberly.
I did. Vividly. Horribly. Lewis had so much power . . . more power than me, than anyone. Lewis had done exactly what his nature demanded he do-he'd stepped in to heal her. In doing so, he'd been vulnerable to the Mark, and that was . . . horrible. Lewis corrupted, without a conscience, with unlimited power . . .
Apocalypse never seemed like such a personal word before.
"Is he still with her?" I asked. She tilted her head to one side, then back. "C'mon, Rahel, spill. I don't have time for Djinn games."
"I think so. We have found no trace of him."
"Why doesn't he leave?"
She blinked slowly. "I think he can't."
"Shit!" I slapped the ground hard enough to make my hand hurt. "Why didn't you tell me?"
"What would you have done differently?"
"Well, crap, maybe I wouldn't have blundered right into the trap, you idiot!"
Rahel gave me a long, offended look that reminded me I was dealing with Power. Capital P. "I am not responsible for the short-sighted nature of mortals, Snow White. I deal with you as we have always done with humans. It is not our nature to explain ourselves. We expect you to understand this."
"Whatever. Man, if I make it out of this, we're going to have some classes in interspecies communication, 'cause you guys suck at it!" Shit. I didn't have time for this, the situation was out of control, and as somebody already falling, I had a bird's-eye view of the nasty landing. "I need to get to Oklahoma City."
"I can't take you there," she said. "I'm-"
"Yeah, free, I know. You can only travel the speed we do." She looked pleased and surprised that I already knew. "Get me to the closest car lot."
She nodded. "Hold on," she said. She threw her arms around me in a full-body hug.
And my feet left the ground.
Now, I've flown in Oversight hundreds of times, maybe thousands-and I'm used to the sensation of the world falling away. But this was different. My body wasn't safely down on the ground waiting for me; my body was dangling in midair, at the mercy of a Djinn with an ugly sense of humor.
I let out a scream that came out more like a helpless meep and threw my arms around her, too, hanging on for dear life as we soared up into the cool air. Heat battered my skin, and when I dared to look down, we were passing over the blazing orange pyre of the Land Rover.
A bird dipped wings and darted closer to check us out; I read confusion in his dark little bird eyes and absolutely felt for him. I didn't know I was doing in his airspace, either.
"You know so much of the Djinn," Rahel said, grinning. "Did you know we could do this?"
I shut my mouth before I could catch a bug in it.
Rahel touched us down on the corner of an intersection in Norman, about ten miles from where we'd started, and let me sit down and put my head between my knees to fight off the urge to puke. She found it amusing.
"You walk the worlds," she said. "Yet a little levitation bothers you?"
"A little? Hello, a lot," I shot back, and swallowed. "What are we doing here?"
Here being a closed, deserted car lot called Performance Automotive. Rahel gave me a look so exasperated, I was surprised she didn't just snap her fingers and make me into a white rat.
"Clearly, we are getting you transportation."
Right, the Land Rover was a pile of smoking crap. "We're stealing a car."
"Unless they offer late-night test drives, I believe so."
So, it was going to be straight-up grand theft auto. No problem. The idea of a car perked me right up, and besides, next to the death sentence ticking away inside me, prison sounded like a day spa. I had to get to OKC and find Star, and wheels sounded like a damn practical idea.
I scouted around for witnesses. Not much traffic in this part of town after sunset, especially with a storm coming; the predominant sound came from wind-snapped flags and the rattling hum of light poles shivering in the increasingly harsh wind. The few cars that did drive by didn't seem to be bothered by our presence.
Rahel waited for me to say something. I took a deep breath and obliged. "I need something fast but invisible," I said. "High-end Honda, maybe an Acura, neutral colors. I want to blend into traffic. But first, take care of these security cameras."
Rahel looked up at the shiny blind lenses stationed on the roof of the dealership and attached to two or three of the light poles. She stared for three or four seconds. "It's done."
"Really?"
"I fried the circuit boards," she said. "And also demagnetized the security tape."
"Damn, you sure you've never done this kind of thing before?"
Rahel showed me fierce white teeth. "I have done every kind of thing before, sistah."
We stepped over the white-painted iron fence that wasn't designed to keep shoppers out, just cars in; there were some sweet machines parked on the lot, in a rainbow of yummy colors. I reluctantly ruled out the neon yellows, greens, and reds.
"That one," I said, and pointed to the one that looked black in the peach gleam of the sodium lights. It was a BMW, a good solid production car. Not the highest priced set of wheels, not the lowest, but one that would do zero to sixty in under eight seconds without any mods at all. Best of all, it looked kind of like a family car, which meant it wouldn't be so easy to spot at a glance from a passing cop.
And, unless I missed my guess, it was dark blue, which was my color.
Rahel nodded and walked over to do a slow circle of the car, never taking her eyes off it, and finally said, "There is an alarm inside."
"Can you disarm it?"
"Of course."
"Go for it."
"Done." She shrugged. She put her hand on the door locks, manipulated electrical currents, and popped open the driver's side door. "Now you should go, quickly."
I started to. Really. And as I turned to get in, I saw her.
She was sitting all alone in the parking lot, gleaming dark blue with white racing stripes up her hood.
It was love at first sight.
I walked away from the Beamer without any conscious decision to do so. I heard Rahel asking what I thought I was doing, but I was locked on this unexpected beauty sitting there, waiting for me like God himself had put her there.
Rahel caught up with me as I came to a halt next to the car. Car? No, that was too small a word; it could have described anything from a Honda Civic to a Lamborghini. This needed a new word.
"What is it?" she asked impatiently. I put two fingers on the gorgeous metallic blue paint, stroking it.
"A 1997 Dodge Viper GTS," I said reverently. "V10, 7,990 cubic capacity engine, six thousand RPM. The fastest production car in America, top speed of nearly three hundred kilometers per hour. Faster than any Corvette, faster than the 1971 Boss Mustang, faster than the goddamn wind, Rahel."
Rahel looked unimpressed. "It looks expensive."
"About sixty grand, if you're lucky enough to find one." The door was locked, of course, but I could feel the Viper issuing the invitation. "Open it."
"You told me you wanted to blend in and be difficult to spot. This ... is not hard to spot."
"Just hard to catch." I flattened my hand against the paint and stroked her flared panels like she was a barely tamed tiger. "She's the one. No question about it."
Rahel shrugged, touched the door handle, and the lock popped up. I slipped inside with a sigh of pleasure; it felt like dropping into my favorite chair, with a purring cat curled up against me. Soul-deep comfort. I adjusted the seat, inspected the cockpit display, and felt a surge of love as strong as anything I'd felt for a car in my life. Even poor Delilah.
"I'll take it," I said. Rahel looked perplexed. "Please."
She touched the ignition. The Viper shivered into purring life. The gearshift knob fit perfectly in the palm of my hand. Rahel closed the driver's-side door. I hit the button to glide down the window and said, "Can you open the gate?"
"I live to serve." She sounded bemused. Well, I guess she'd never witnessed the sacred bonding of woman and car before. "Do you know where to go?"
"Away from you," I said, and eased the Viper into gear. The power shifted to a low, trembling growl. Sweet. "Actually, I have a pretty damn good idea what I have to do now. It's what you always wanted me to do, right? Go back to Oklahoma City. Get to Star."
She smiled. "Perhaps you're not as stupid as I feared." Her hot gold eyes never blinked. "Don't assume David will take your side. He can't, however much he wishes."
Behind her, metal locks snapped and wrought-iron gates swung open with a soft moan, laying down the last token of the Viper's protection. "God be with you," she said. I idled, looking at her.
"How about you?"
She shook her head. "At the last, I must be faithless," she said. "I have done what I could. Ask me for nothing more."
I didn't intend to. As I slipped the Viper in gear, I slid up into Oversight to survey the stormline, and I saw the Demon Mark in me, an ugly black nightmare of tentacles and edges. I closed my eyes against the destruction of my soul and promised, "I'm going to find a way to stop her." I let the Viper slip the leash and run.
The Viper-whose name, I decided, was Mona- hit ninety miles an hour on the way out of Norman, which barely required an effort on her part. She was a throwback to earlier cars, sensitive to touch, steering, braking, no computer-controlled minibrain to interpret between us.
The storm that had been chasing me for the last thousand miles was coming fast, gathering speed and rotation. I'd need to do something about that before I could make any move against Star; too much energy out there, too much risk that it could kick me when I was down. First, though, I was going to have to stop for gas. It was risky, not to mention pricey, but the dealership had left only an eighth of a tank in the Viper, and I couldn't afford to run out of gas.
I pulled into a roadside Texaco as a huge gust of wind blew through carrying grit and shredded papers and plastic bags; it had an earth-heavy, faintly corrupt smell that worried me. I pumped as much gas as my last few dollars would allow, paid the gap-toothed cashier, and headed back out into the wind. The temperature was dropping, and the white lace top, though fatally fashionable, did nothing to cut the chill.
Another gust blew my hair over my face. I clawed it back and realized that I had company.
A big yellow Nissan SUV had pulled up at the pumps between me and the Viper.
I slowed from a trot to a walk to a full stop. My heart hammered and went up to a level only cardio aerobics should have triggered. Fight or flight. God, I wanted to fight. I needed to fight, but whatever organs in my body controlled the flow of power were badly worked over these last few days, and even trying to gauge the wind speed made me ache.
Out on the freeway, a semi truck blew by, dragging an air-horn blast. The wind shoved me like a bully.
Marion Bearheart stepped out from behind the back of the SUV and stood watching me, hands in the pockets of her fringed leather coat. Her black-and-silver hair was contained in a thick braid that fell over one shoulder, and she looked strong and tough and resolute.
"Don't run," she said. Somehow, I heard her even over the wind.
"Dammit, I don't have time for this!" I shouted. The words whipped away, but their essence remained. Her hands stayed in her pockets, but she took a step closer.
"Make time," she said. And took another step. I wanted to back away, but there was something powerful and immortal in her eyes, something larger than my fear. "I know you have the Mark."
I wondered how long she'd known, or suspected. She'd been pretty careful with me, back on Iron Road-afraid of rousing the Mark? Or just putting it together afterwards?
"It's all right," she said. The wind whipped unexpectedly sideways, then back; strands of hair tore loose from her braid and floated black and silver around her face. "Joanne, trust me. This will all work out. Please, let's figure this out together."
She held out her hand to me, silver-and-turquoise rings gleaming in the harsh lights of the gas station.
I took a step back. She tried again.
"Once your powers are gone, the Mark won't be able to feed," she said. "It will starve and wither. You'll live. I can make that happen."
I couldn't live like that, not blind and deaf, cut off from the breathing of the world. Cut off from the aetheric. Like Star, I was just too deep in the world.
"I'm not the only one with the Mark," I said. "You know that, right?"
"One problem at a time." Marion had a kind of fevered intensity about her, and I could feel her willing me to give in. But she hadn't used her power. Why not? She'd used it on Iron Road. . . . Ah, of course, the storm. The more power we used, the worse the storm would get, the faster it would reach us. She was being responsible.
As I took another step back, arms closed around me from behind and lifted me straight off the ground. Erik. He was bigger than me, stronger, taller, and he'd taken me by surprise. I felt ribs creak when he squeezed. I kicked frantically at his shins, but if it hurt him, he didn't do more than grunt in my ear.
Marion walked up to me and gently smoothed hair back from my face. She smiled. "Don't struggle. I know, you made a terrible mistake, but it can be fixed, I swear. You're too valuable to the Wardens; I won't let anything happen to you."