Ill Wind Page 0,93

it, opened it again and heard the first syllable whispering and gathering strength and echoing in the sounding bell of my mind.

"Say it," Star whispered. I felt her warm breath on my ear. "It has to be you, chica, I can't do it for you."

The Djinn, Alice. That was where this power was flowing from. She was holding the book, and the book drew power from her ... I wondered if it hurt her. Her eyes were huge, doll-like, empty of emotion. Empty of fear. Her arms were shaking, as if the book were heavier than the world.

I hadn't heard him walk up to me, but now David was there, at the edge of my vision, almost glittering with intensity. He was still in human disguise, human form, but how much longer? How long until the words echoing in my head forced him to reveal himself?

I reached out, took the book from the Djinn's arms, and slammed it closed with a sound like thunder. The Djinn stumbled backwards, or floated; she looked drained and skeletal for a few seconds, then rebuilt herself into the sweet-faced little refugee from beyond the looking glass.

"No," I said. I looked at Star and saw she was staring at me as if she'd never seen me before, as if I'd grown two heads and goat feet. "This is wrong, Star. I can feel it."

"Wrong," she repeated slowly. She reached out and put her hand over the place the Demon Mark had left its black scorching tattoo on my breast. "And this isn't?"

"That wasn't my choice." I hefted the heavy book.

It smelled faintly rotten, felt damp and unclean. "This is. And I'm not doing it."

Her eyes went flat and opaque, like Mayan flint. "You can't keep it," she said, and there was something terrible in her voice, like blood and lightning. "I can't let you keep it, Jo."

Her face was changing. Melting. Becoming beautiful, the way she'd been back before Yellowstone. Taking on a kind of lush, lustrous glow that was too perfect, even for an airbrushed magazine model. An inhuman beauty.

"You don't deserve it," she said. I could hear an echo in her voice now of something stirring inside me. "I deserve it. It chose me. I can't let you have it, Jo, not again. You've always been prettier and smarter and more powerful, and you can't have this!"

Ah, God, no, no, no. Not Star.

I remembered something Lewis had told me. There's a Demon trying to come through. Trying to touch one of us.

It had tried to touch Star. It must have succeeded, in the end. That was how she repaired her fractured core, how she looked so lustrous and beautiful.

The Demon had given her what she wanted, just as mine had given Bad Bob everything he desired.

Except I couldn't sense a Mark on Star. I looked wildly at David, who was standing just a few feet away.

"She doesn't have one," he told me. "No Mark."

"No," she said. "Not anymore. He took it away from me." Star bared her teeth and didn't look so beautiful anymore. There was so much rage in her, so much despair. And yet, she was still Star. The same lovely, smart, smart-mouthed girl I loved.

She tore her gaze away from David and made an effort to pretend it was all normal again. "I tried to make you listen, but you just kept coming. You knew, didn't you? You knew all about what was happening here. Had to be the hero. Had to save me." Her pretty mouth twisted into something bitter and ugly. "Barely saved yourself, back there in that stupid mall. Some great hero."

Star. All this time I'd been thinking it was someone else, some invisible enemy. But my enemy had been right in plain sight. Jesus, I told her I was coming. No wonder she'd known where I was, how to track me. I'd made it simple.

"Feeling betrayed?" she asked. She stepped closer. "Join the club, girlfriend. Not like you didn't betray me first."

"Life sucks," I said. Star took the book from my hands.

"Then you die," she finished gravely. She flicked her eyes at the blond-haired Djinn, standing quietly with her hands clasped like a good little schoolgirl. "When I give you the signal, I want you to transport me back to my house, understand? Me and whatever I'm holding in my hands."

The book