Firestorm Page 0,71

time. Only not with such a deadly motivation.

Don't stop.

I formed shells of pure air around the spark plugs. The engine sputtered again, caught, and surged, rocking from side to side on the rough road.

"What's happening?" Emily had decided to speak to me again. I didn't have time to answer. I felt her pull on the back of my seat as she hauled herself upright. "What--What the hell?..."

She screamed in my ear as all four of the Djinn--all of them, moving in concert--stepped into the road, blocking us. The kids in front.

Don't stop. No matter what.

I closed my eyes, sucked in a panicked breath and held it. And kept the Jeep hurtling toward them at speed.

"No!" Emily shrieked, rattling my eardrum, and I felt the wheel wrench as she grabbed it over my shoulder and twisted, hard, to the right. I lost my grip. The wheels lost the road, bounced over ruts, lost purchase...

We rolled over. All the way over, in torturously slow increments, as the world spun in a complete 360. The Jeep bounced and groaned as it settled back upright on its springs again.

So much for Emily's SUV being good as new.

"You idiot!" I yelled, and cranked the key. Nothing. Whether it was the crash, or the Djinn, the truck wasn't going anywhere. I wasn't hurt, but I was scared, and my personal terror level got elevated as the driver's side door was wrenched open.

Angel Djinn stood there, staring at me with pure white eyes. Her skin was a delicate, inhuman silver, and her robes like alabaster silk blowing in an unfelt breeze. She had dark, waving hair that cascaded in luxurious waves over her shoulders, past her hips, down to trail the ground and her bare feet.

She reached in, grabbed my seat belt, and ripped it loose with a single tug, then grabbed my arm and dragged me out. Slammed me up against the fender of the Jeep in a flurry of dust and held me there, with her hand poised over my heart.

We froze that way. I didn't dare breathe. She didn't need to. Her head slowly tilted to one side, then came back upright again. I was reminded of the deliberate targeting movements of praying mantises.

"You stink of it," she whispered. I could hardly understand her; her accent sounded odd, antique, as if she hadn't bothered to speak to a human in hundreds of years. "Filth. Reeking filth."

Next to her shining perfection, that's pretty much what I felt like, too. But I knew what she was sensing--the two Demon Marks I'd had on me in the past twenty-four hours. Not to mention the Demon that had been chasing after me like a freight train back in the forest, lighting trees on fire as it came.

But I'm not one to take that kind of thing lying down.

"Do I have a Demon Mark?" I demanded. Not that you should demand anything from a Djinn who's just participating in the slaughter of about--my brain whited out at an attempt at the number. Upwards of fifteen people, at least.

"No," she said, and did the head-tilt back and forth again. Maybe I was like a Magic Eye poster, and she was trying to see the Statue of Liberty hidden inside me. She dropped her hand back to her side. "You may go."

She abruptly turned and glided around the Jeep, over to the other side, where Emily was leaning against the door. Emily promptly scooted over to my side of the car and rattled the handle. Stuck. Stay there, I mouthed. She ignored me, of course. But to be fair, maybe she couldn't see me. The window was fractured into a fine latticework of cracked safety glass.

"Excuse me," a polite voice said, and before I could flinch, much less grant pardon, I was picked up and set gently off to the side by the big male Djinn, who had dark cocoa skin and black eyes, and a whole lot of long pale hair that was tied into a ponytail at his back. He was dressed in more conventional styles than Angel Djinn--blue jeans, a chambray work shirt in fashionable (and daring) light purple. He misted out at the knees. It didn't seem to bother him.

I stumbled on gravel when he let go of me. He reached over, grabbed the handle of the back door of the SUV, and removed the door, handle and all. He set it gently aside, next to the one Angel had dismembered, and leaned in to grab Emily