Ill Wind Page 0,65

being torn apart by the forces in the room. By my own power, out of control.

His Djinn disappeared into the maelstrom, and I saw the wine bottle picked up by the wind and hurtled against the far wall with so much force, it literally vanished into crystals no larger than sand.

The leather couch I was still lying on was blown back with a tidal force of wind, and I rolled over debris. Shards of glass everywhere; I barely noticed the cuts, but I managed to get my fingers around a sharp needle-edged piece and slashed at the ropes that held my hands until they parted with a moist snap. It hurt, but my standards of pain had changed; a little flesh-and-blood agony was nothing to worry about.

I scrambled until I found a wall at my back. Lightning flashed, and I could feel the thing feeding inside me, out of control; greedy little bastard sucking down every mote of energy. It fed off storms. It fed off the power burning inside me.

I had to shut it off. Somehow, I had to reach down into that-thing-and force it to obey. It was growing inside me, growing angles and cutting edges; it would burst out of me like some evil child and then . . . and then . . .

Something warm and gentle touched the back of my neck. Breathe, a voice whispered inside me. Under my skin. Child of air, breathe in your strength.

I gasped in a breath. Another. The air felt warm, smelled faintly of ozone.

The Demon is of the darkness. Use your light.

I opened my eyes and there, in front of me, was the Djinn. Bad Bob's Djinn. He was a column of living fire, a pair of golden eyes, something wonderful and terrible at the same time.

Breathe in your strength, it said again, and when I inhaled, I felt the fire go into me, burning like raw lava down my throat, into the darkness.

Now go.

I was outside in the rain, in the cold, with my arms wrapped around my body, shivering. The surf pounded the dome house, sucked at it like a tasty treat. Overhead, the eye of the storm whirled and stared down on me.

Inside me, the Demon Mark shuddered and went quiet.

I breathed out mist and steam, and around me the energy levels faded. Lightning flashed, hit close, and I felt the burn of ozone on my flesh like the heat of a distant cold sun.

And then I slammed back down, hard, into reality. Cold, wet, windy reality, the storm screaming over tortured waves, the stench of burning and dead things and my sweat. There was something inside me, stuck inside me. I ripped open my shirt, expecting to find-something-some horrible black tangle under the skin. There was only a faint, intricate black scorch mark. I touched it, trembling, and felt the thing underneath stretch and murmur in its sleep.

I went to my knees, hard, and threw up.

I don't know how long I was there, huddled near the ruins of Bad Bob's house, but I felt the Wardens when they arrived-Janice Langstrom, Bad Bob's exec, and Ulrike Kohl. Ulrike concentrated on the storm raging out at sea, but I could have told her it was useless; the storm was mine, keyed to me, born of my fury. All she could do was tame it down to a sullen retreat.

It was Janice who found me. "Joanne?" We knew each other. Not well, but enough for nodding acquaintance. I let her help me up to my feet and pulled the tattered halves of my blouse together, more out of an instinctive desire for her not to see the Mark than any impulse to modesty. "Oh, my God! What happened here?"

I opened my mouth to tell her . . . and then didn't. I couldn't even begin. Something in me-that wily, scared-to-death primitive part of my brain-told me that if I said anything about the Demon Mark, I could kiss my ass good-bye.

I just shivered.

She searched my face, her frown deepening; she was an older woman, younger than Bad Bob but not by much. Moderately powerful. Extremely perceptive.

"That storm has your smell all over it," she said, and her grip on my arm tightened. "Where is he? Where's Bob?"

Chapter Sixteen

I didn't answer. I saw the blooming of anger in her cool gray eyes, and then there