Rachel Caine: Ill Wind

She dumped the bowl on the counter between us. "You already did think of something. You brought the damn Wardens here. If they find us, they'll take him away, take you away… and you know what they'll do to me, Jo. Gut me and leave me like I was before. A freak. Worse. A powerless freak. I can't live like that, and you know it."

"Nothing you can do to stop it now," I said. "It's too late. I'm sorry. I really am."

"Oh, there is something I can do. Nobody knows where the hell Lewis is, anyway, so it's no big thing. He disappears, you disappear… all I have to do is get rid of Maid Marion and her merry band of butchers out there. Maybe I'll get David to blow up their truck. I hate those damn SUVs, anyway, and they'll just blame it all on you." Star finished scraping cookies from the second sheet pan, dumped it, and held out the bowl to me. "Here. Have one."

"Thanks, I'd rather choke on a razor blade. Which I'm not so sure you didn't bake inside those."

She smiled, or tried to, and put the bowl down. "So. We gonna fight now, or what?"

I looked at her over the bowl of cookies. My friend. My sister. My ghostly reflection of what might have happened if I'd been the one in the fire that day, because I'd always known I wasn't cut out for normal human life any more than Star was.

"Guess so," I said. "Because I'm taking Lewis and David out of here."

"Thought you'd say that."

She took another bite of cookie.

Behind her, the oven exploded into a brilliant blue-white ball of flame, which raced my way.

I dropped to the floor in a crouch and tossed every oxygen molecule out of the air around me for three feet in any direction. Fire needs O 2. It was an elementary tactic, but it worked; the fire blasted toward me, hit the shield of nonoxygenated air, and deflected around. The heat wasn't hard to control, either; after all, it was just molecules moving. I made them move slower.

When it was over, I wasn't even singed. I let go of the air bubble, stepped toward Star, and took a deep breath. "You know, I was feeling sorry for you," I said. "Poor little Star, all alone in that hospital, burned beyond recognition, boo-fucking-hoo. Did you ever stop to think about all those Wardens who died? Who never even made it out? Of course you didn't. Because it's just all about you."

She laughed. It was a crazy sound. She held out both hands in front of her, palms up, and intense blue-white flames danced on the skin and reflected in her dark eyes. "Yeah, like it ain't all about you, Jo. Bad Bob dumps a problem on you, and what do you do? Take off running like a scared rabbit to save your skin. You don't want to give up your powers any more than I do. You've put people in danger. Hell, for all I know, you killed some, too. So don't pretend we're not alike."

"Oh, we're alike," I agreed. "See, that's why I didn't use David like some piece of Kleenex to save my skin. Because we're so fucking alike."

"You gonna whine or fight?"

"I'm gonna win," I said. "Bank it."

She bared her teeth. "Yeah? Look behind you."

I did.

There was a man standing there in the open doorway that must have led to the cellar of the house-tall, lanky, his face almost hidden by a growth of shaggy dark hair. He was wearing an ancient stained tie-dyed shirt and sweatpants stiff with grime. His feet were filthy. If I'd passed him on the street, I'd have dropped a dollar in his will work for food cup.

It was Lewis.

I turned around, put my hands out to my sides in the universal no-danger-here pose, and said, "Lewis? Remember me? It's Jo."

He was staring at me with eyes so wide and dark that they looked to be all pupil. Drugged, or worse. Completely mad.

He was staring at my breasts. Which was, to put it mildly, more weird than flattering in the current circumstances.

He looked up into my face, and I felt my knees turn to water at the sight of all the torment and confusion in his eyes. If Star didn't get punished for anything else she did, ever, she should be punished for this.

"Jo?" he asked, and it was an entirely normal voice, which was entirely not normal, given the way he looked. "I'm really sorry about all this. I can't stop it."

And then he walked up and slugged me, right in the face.

Fire and Weather don't go to war. We don't go to war because it's too dangerous, and we have no decisive advantages. Our powers counter each other very nicely, all the way down the line.

But when Weather fights Weather… that's when it gets nasty.

And that was exactly why I'd declared a Code One general alert, because I wanted the mystical world of the aetheric locked down tighter than a drum. A Code One calls every Warden able to respond, everywhere, to action. Locking down their patterns, whether of weather or fire or earth, in the same way you'd anchor boats in a storm or plywood your windows in a hurricane. Basically, it meant everything came to a stop.

Over Oklahoma City, the air was clear, still, and dead. Nothing was moving. Nothing could without a massive push, one large enough to toss off the controls of at least a hundred Wardens and their Djinn.

That wasn't likely to happen. Not even for Lewis.

Which at the moment of my opening my eyes didn't help much, because I felt like I'd been hit by a Mack Truck. I'm mostly insulated against lightning, I can sling wind and rain and hail with the best of 'em, but boxing… not my specialty.

I groaned and rolled over on my side and touched my throbbing chin. My lip was split. I explored it with the tip of my tongue, tasted fresh blood, and tried to figure out exactly what was going on.

Ah. It all came back. Star, the cookies, Lewis smacking the crap out of me.

The Code One lockdown.

I might have robbed Star and Lewis of options, but I also hadn't left myself a whole lot of room to maneuver.

Something brushed my face, light as cobwebs, and where it touched pain faded. I knew that touch, that warming sensation.

"She's awake." David's voice, stripped of emotion. I opened my eyes and saw him sitting next to me. He didn't ask how I was, or say anything directly to me, but that touch—I had to believe that it had been David who'd done that, the real David. Was it possible for him to fight for control? To go against her? If Star knew…

"About time." Star, of course; she sounded freaked, which made her sound callous. "Jesus, girl, you're not exactly one of those TV kick-ass hero chicks, are you. One punch, you're down for ten minutes. My mama could have done better."

"Get her down here, we'll go," I mumbled. I wiped a trickle of blood away from my lips and sat up.

"It's over, Star. I've already spilled the beans. They're coming for all of us. Lewis'll probably get a Demonectomy, but you, you're toast, babe. They'll hoover you so dry, you won't be able to light a match with a nuclear weapon."

She kicked me. Right in the stomach. I'd never been kicked in the stomach before, and it was not a special treat. I rolled over, pulled my knees up, and gagged through the pain. I wondered if she'd ruptured anything I couldn't live without. It would be a real bitch to end up dead, ripped up by this damn Demon I hadn't chosen, setting destruction loose on the aetheric, just because I'd taken a pointy-toed boot in the spleen.

"Don't," Lewis said. He was sitting in the corner, resting his chin on his crossed forearms.

"Don't what?" Star shot back, and paced in front of me like a crack addict on a caffeine high. "She ruined it! She brought them here… and now they know. I can't let them take me. I can't."

Watching her, I realized David had been right when he'd warned me of the corrupting effects of living with the Demon Mark. Star had taken it; she'd lived with it in secret for a long time, and it had gnawed out her soul.