Ill Wind Page 0,88

her fingers and shake them, one at a time. "Well, that narrows it down. I guess you need to get yourself a Djinn."

And I was back where I'd started. Helpless. Caught in the headlights of oncoming friggin' fate. I wanted to scream at Rahel, wherever she was. What fucking choice do I have?

And then Star said, shocking me down to my shoes, "Luckily, babe, I think I can help you out on that score."

My asking what Star meant got me nowhere. She just kept giving me that secret little grin and telling me to wait and see; I could see David getting wound tighter and tighter, ready to lash out. He was scared. I was scared for him. God, she couldn't know . . . could she?

We pulled off at a gas station about five miles down the road. Star went inside to pay for the gas and to grab beverages and whatever passed for food; I got out to walk around in the cooling wind, shivering. The storm that had been following me was still on my trail. I could feel it like a tingle at the edges of my mind.

I don't know if you've ever been in that part of the world, but it's flat, and it seems to go on forever. The land can't quite decide whether it's desert or scrub forest, so it sticks clumps of stubby, twisted bushes together and surrounds them with reddish dust. There's no elegance to it, but there is a certain toughness. It's land that will fight you for every drop of water, every green growing thing you want to take from it. Even though I wasn't an Earth Warden, I could feel that, feel the awesome sleeping power of it surrounding me.

I didn't expect David to touch me, so the heavy warmth of his hands on my shoulders made me tense up before I turned to face him. I was hoping that meant I was forgiven, but I could see in his eyes that I wasn't. He was fully in human mode, walled off from me, but I could sense the power in him, too.

"Why'd you tell her?" he asked me. His hands stayed on my shoulders for a few seconds, then traveled up to cup my face with heat.

I thought of Rahel. "Because it's the only choice I've had this whole trip that's really my own. I need to trust somebody."

"Then trust me."

"I do." I looked up into his eyes and wished he trusted me-I could feel that reserve in him again, that doubt. "I need help, David. You know that. If I can't get to Lewis-if he can't or won't let me get to him-I need help to fight off whatever's after me. Whether that's Marion, or some other bastard I don't even know ... I can't do it alone." And after it was out, I knew how that sounded.

"Is that what you are?" he asked. "Alone?"

I can be a real bitch sometimes, without even meaning to. He let me go, stepped back to minimum safe distance, and shoved his hands in the pockets of his long olive coat.

"So it's you and Star against the world," he said. "That how it's going to be? Maybe she can even provide a Djinn for you. One that you don't know, so it won't be like eating your own pet dog."

"Don't say that, dammit. I'm trying to change the rules of the game. I have to. The deck's stacked against us."

"I already changed the rules. Look how much good it's done."

Apparently, Djinn were capable of morning-after regrets, too. "Fine. New rules. Rule number one: Let me do this my way. You've been herding me from one place to another ever since I left Westchester. You've been trying to tell me what to do, when to do it. And I can't live that way, David. I need to-"

"To what?" He glared at me, and I saw orange sparks flicker in his eyes. "To make yourself a target? Tell the world you have the Demon Mark? Trust your friend to protect you?"

I watched his eyes. "You don't like her."

He stepped toward me, intimate and aggressive. "I don't trust her. I don't trust anybody with your life."

"Not even me?"

He growled in the back of his throat and stalked off toward the convenience store, where Star was paying for a stack of bottled water