Ill Wind Page 0,72

watch it rot you inside. I can't stand that."

I sank down on the bed and cradled my head. "Why the hell do you want to do this for me?"

He went down on his knees on the carpet next to me, started to touch me and then stopped as if he didn't trust himself. "It's the Mark. Can't you feel it? It's seeping into your thoughts, your feelings. Soon you won't want to be free of it. It's got to be now, or you're lost."

He was right, of course. That's where the anger was from, the constant, itching fury. From the Demon Mark. It was growing, developing, taking me along for the ride. I could feel it tapped into me now. Its power was at least partly mine. Soon, we'd be joined, and there'd be no going back unless I was ready to give up my soul with it.

When I looked up we were at eye level, close as lovers. I put my hand on his cheek and said, "I swear to the one true God, David, you will never take this Mark. So give it up. Just go away. Let me have a little peace, while I still can."

It hurt, that moment. It was a wire stretched between the two of us, buried deep in our hearts, pulling and singing with tension.

I broke it. I got to my feet and stepped around him. He caught my wrist. "Where are you going?"

"To take a shower," I said. "I stink like a cattle truck. Don't worry, I don't think the Mark is going to wash off and spoil your chance to be a martyr."

I walked calmly to the bathroom, shut the door, and locked it. All the normal bathroom hotel amenities, like a coffeemaker and a hair dryer, complimentary shampoo and lotion . . . Life looked so normal in here, preciously, wonderfully normal.

I sat down on the closed toilet seat and stared at the spacious bathtub for a while. I was too tired to think, but luckily there was no need for it; I stripped off my filthy clothes and piled them in an untidy mess under the bathroom counter, started the water, and got in while it was stingingly cold. As I started to cry, I felt the Demon Mark moving inside me, stretching lazily, like a bully waking up from a nice long nap. I sank down to my knees in the tub, hugging myself, letting the warming water pound my neck and back. Water sluiced away, sluggish with dirt, but even when it ran clear, I felt far from clean. I would never be clean again.

Soaping and rinsing my hair was oddly therapeutic, though. By the time I rinsed for the third time some of the chill in me had started to thaw.

I was going to live, I discovered. Even though turning down David's offer had effectively signed my death warrant, there had to be something left. If Lewis came through, fine. If not . . . there were options. There had to be. I could read, research-find out how to fight this thing.

Still, it took every ounce of courage I had to get myself out of the tub and through the ritual of drying off.

When I ventured out of the steaming bathroom again, David was gone. His backpack was there, still leaning drunkenly in the corner; his long olive-drab coat was hung neatly in the closet, and his clothes were in a drawer. Even his shoes were present and accounted for.

As I hunted around for clues, I discovered he'd left me a present. There was a bikini laid out neatly on the bed. Turquoise, teeny, outrageously daring. I stared at it, baffled; the hotel gift shop was long-ago closed, and I hadn't rescued any clothes of my own; surely David wasn't in the habit of carrying around a thing like that in his pocket.

I remembered the beautiful blue jewel of the pool below and the quietly bubbling hot tub. Ah. Of course. The invitation was silent, but it was there. I could either accept or crawl in bed and go to sleep.

I dropped the towel and put the two tiny pieces on. It fit like it had been made for me. Which, I knew, it had been. It had that aura about it, that warmth of David's skin.

I checked it in the mirror.

It was . . . the perfect