could feel the nightmare closing in on me, clocks ticking, hearts racing, sands running out. I was dying and living and running all at once, and there was a storm inside me, black with thunder, white with lightning, and rain crawled in my veins.
He put his hand over the Mark. It didn't help. The storm didn't stop. Even when he kissed me-a long, gentle, lingering kiss that had the taste of good-bye.
"Remember me," he whispered, with his lips still touching mine. "No matter what happens."
I felt him melt away like mist, and when I reached out to touch his face, it was gone; there was nothing but the memory of him in my fingers and the taste of him burning my lips.
I screamed and screamed and screamed into the wind, but he didn't come back.
I drove the Land Rover out of town at high speed, not caring if anyone saw me; not caring about much of anything, really. Star would find me. Marion would find me. Hell, it really didn't matter who found me anymore, because it was all coming apart, I was coming apart, and David was gone.
Something flickered at the corner of my eye as I made the turn onto I-35, heading south for the Texas border. I had a stowaway in the passenger seat. Unseeable is easier than invisible, David had told me.
I reached over and grabbed Rahel by the wrist without looking at her, and when I turned my head, she faded into view, sunshine yellow still neon-bright and unnaturally stylish in the dashboard lights.
"I told you, you're a fool," she said. "Let go of my arm, Snow White."
"I can hurt you," I said. It was true. The Demon Mark had braided into me so deeply now that I had the power, power to smash and flatten and hurt even a Djinn. When David had vanished, the last reason I had to resist that power was gone. What was the point of being human, anyway? To be hurt? To be abused? Screw it. I was done with that.
Rahel took me seriously, which was gratifying. "Why would you? I'm not your enemy."
"Baby, I'm no longer sure who my enemies are. My friends, either."
She laughed. It was a rich Swiss chocolate kind of sound, full of delight. "Well, you're learning."
"Whose Djinn are you?"
She shook her finger at me, still smiling. "No, no, not important, sweet one. We're past all that now. You know your enemy. It's time to fight."
"Fight what?" I snarled. "The Demon Mark? Star? Jesus, what exactly do you expect me to do? I never wanted any of this, you know. I just want-"
I just wanted David. I wanted that perfect night of peace. I wanted love with so much intensity, it brought tears to my eyes. Oh, Star. My whole soul mourned for the girl I'd known, the one I'd saved, the one I'd lost. It had happened by inches and years, and I'd never even noticed. But more than that, I mourned for me . . . for the me who had been destroyed when Bad Bob ripped away my sense of who I was in this world.
I let go of Rahel and put both hands back on the wheel. "Leave me alone."
She wasn't laughing now, or smiling, either. Whatever I'd expected to see in those hot yellow eyes, it wasn't compassion. "The thing about being alone?" she said softly. "So many choices. So many possibilities."
"Yeah, I'm fucking blessed. Want to drop me a clue about what to do next?"
She shrugged. "Whatever I tell you, you will not do it. Why should I burden you with advice for you to doubt and pick at like an unhealed sore?"
"Well, that's pretty."
She leaned back, put one foot up on the dashboard, and examined her neon-yellow toenails, which were displayed to advantage by a lovely pair of designer sandals in-of course-neon yellow. "I'm no one's Djinn, Child of Demons. As you should know by now."
"You're like David." Saying his name hurt, and hurt, and hurt, turning a razor blade in the marrow of my bones.
She shot me a narrow, amused look, and her black cornrows rustled over her shoulders as she shook her head. "Nothing like David, in fact. Nor do we share lineage."
"You both belonged to Lewis, and you're still trying to protect him, wherever he is."
She shook her head