Firestorm Page 0,119

far, fought so hard, run so fast... and she was ignoring me. Unlike Rahel, this wasn't someone I could give a hard right cross to the chin to get her attention. There was a strong sense of deep holiness here. Respect was required.

Respect was demanded.

Outside of the glass windows, I saw the sky... change. It had been getting darker, but now it curdled, like ink dropped in clear water--a sense of something wrong, something desperately and fatally wrong. I felt it happen inside of myself, too. I felt the deathclock we all carried, all mortal things, speed up.

Oh God. Was she going to just wipe everything clean? All life? Destroy it all and wait that long eternity for things to grow again? Or would the Djinn step back into their place as firstborn, best loved?

I went up into the aetheric, and there I saw it for what it was. A storm coming. A storm that showed bloodred, full of fury and power. I felt a tethering tug, and looked down at my aetheric form to see that there was a line, a thin, unbreakable line stretching from the center of my being up into that storm.

It was connected to me, and as I looked around, I saw hundreds of lines. Thousands. Millions. Like solid raindrops, each leading down to a human life. A human who'd just felt an instant of shadow, of doubt in his or her own immortality.

Who'd had the sensation of someone walking over their graves. Six billion graves, and only one entity walking, but it only took the one.

It was starting.

"Please," I said. "Please don't do this. We don't deserve this. We can't deserve this! Dammit! What do you want me to say?"

The Oracle trembled, a sudden all-over shake, and I felt the Earth itself groan in response. What the hell--?

Her eyes closed, and the hand I was holding suddenly turned and took hold of me. Hard, hot, unyielding. I felt the tremors continue, both through my knees and where she was clutching my fingers. Something was wrong. Terrifyingly wrong.

Oh no.

I took an aching breath and reached forward to move the neck of the Oracle's robes aside, and there, battened on her like a black nest of worms, was the Demon Mark. The skin around it was drained white, leached of life, and I could see the black writhing tentacles bulging under the skin. It was burrowing.

I was too late. It already had a firm grip on her.

I reached out and put both hands on the Demon Mark, willing it to come to me. It ignored me, burrowing for the rich, burning source of power that was the Oracle. I was insignificant. There was no way I had enough power to make it come to me.

There was something coming toward us, digging through stone and concrete. Something dark and terrible. The adult Demon was on its way here, following me or drawn to the immense outpouring of power that was going on--no telling. But we didn't have long.

None of us did. I could feel the terrible pull inside of my life being dragged away.

The Oracle's power was compromised as it tried to fight the infection of the Demon Mark, but even so, it was channeling the intention of the Mother to wipe humanity out of her way.

I couldn't stop it. I couldn't even heal the Oracle, which was the only way I could even begin to make things right.

"Take my hand." A rusty, exhausted voice. I looked aside and saw Rahel, holding out a trembling, blood-stained hand on which the claws had raggedly broken. When I took it, it felt cold.

She extended her hand to Alice--Venna--who was equally damaged. The line stretched on. Djinn after Djinn after Djinn. And with them, humans. I recognized a few Wardens. A few members of the Ma'at.

A chain of hands, joined one to the other, building a circuit of power that, while it couldn't possible be as huge as the potential of the Oracle, was a much easier target.

Come on, I begged the Demon Mark. Come on, you sick little freak. Take us. You know you want it .

It wasn't coming. I hissed in frustration, grabbed hold of it, and pulled with all the fury and grief and rage in me. Felt it spiral through the circuit of hands, rebound, and come back again, stronger. Stronger still.

They poured their power into me, and the Demon Mark moved in my hand, turned, and struck. It was enraged, and my skin was nothing