Rachel Caine: Ill Wind

"Take the Mark!" she yelled. When I tried to pull away from her, she twisted around and held me back, and the burning sensation in my skin wasn't a Djinn illusion; it was the real deal. "Do it!"

David levitated up and slowly across the floor toward Lewis.

"David, don't! I'll say the words, please don't do this —" It was too late for that. He couldn't listen to me, couldn't obey me.

I ripped free of Star's grasp and threw myself at them just as David's hand reached down, into Lewis, and Lewis screamed.

Star threw fire at me. I dodged, but the fireball rolled under the stairs and flared up against dry wood. I didn't have time to spare to put it out; that was Star's specialty, let her deal with it. I reached out to grab hold of David and pull him away from Lewis.

My hand passed right through him—through both of them. Whatever was happening wasn't happening on this plane at all.

I threw myself up into Oversight and saw David the way he really was—a flaming angel, gilded and beautiful, with his hands deep inside the crystal perfection that made up the core of Lewis. Something black and horrible lashed out of Lewis, whipped tentacles around David's arms, crawled through the bridge and attacked. It was like seeing a butterfly being eaten by acid, and even though I couldn't hear David screaming, I could feel it. He'd suffer forever from this. It would never stop for him, until the end of time.

Lewis fell back against the wall and slid down. Now it was just David and the thing, wrapped together like predator and prey, pulsing and writhing and seeking supremacy. I felt the Demon Mark inside me break loose, feeding and screaming as if it could feel the presence of its kindred.

I didn't think. Didn't hesitate. Didn't allow myself even the smallest pause to feel fear.

I plunged myself into David on the aetheric, the way he'd plunged himself into Lewis, joining us together.

And my Demon Mark came into contact with the one wrapped around David.

Power calls to power—always has, always will.

The two Demon Marks went to war.

When you think of yourself as screaming, you usually think of it in your throat, or echoing in your ears, but this was something else. Something worse. It was as if my cells were screaming, each one equipped with a voice and agony to fuel it, and none of it would come out of my mouth. I was on fire. I was freezing. I was dying.

The Demon Marks inside me ate, and ate, and ate. My weather powers, first. When those were gone, the fighting Marks drained energy from my nerves and sent me crashing to the floor. Then they devoured microcellular energy that made up my life.

The last thing to go… the very last… was my sense of hearing, as the synapses of my brain were drained of energy and the Demon Marks howled.

Two snakes, eating each other.

Gone.

It was vastly empty, in the dark where I was. I had flashes of things—Star's melted-wax face, David's blazing copper eyes, the hot glow of his skin on mine. Bad Bob's scowl. The storm whirling to a stop overhead.

Smoke. The taste of smoke. This was what it must have felt like to Star, lying in the ashes while Yellowstone burned around her.

I didn't want to die, but there was nothing left. Nothing.

And then it was all… gone.

The first thing I felt was heat. Not burning, just heat, blood-warm, comfortable, as if I'd fallen asleep in a perfect bath.

I was floating. Unformed. At peace.

"Open your eyes," someone said. I didn't know I had eyes. Didn't know how to open them.

But they opened without my help, and I saw.

The world blazed in colors and auras, crystal and shadows. God, it was beautiful. This shattered ruin of a place, smoke and ashes… it was beautiful in ways I'd never imagined it could be. There were bones in the ashes, and they were beautiful, too. Graceful yellow-white bones with their curves and elegant strength.

So many people around me. Some here in flesh, some here in the Second World that I'd once called the aetheric. I knew all about that now. All about everything. The connection to sky, to sea, to earth, to stars. It was all inside me, and I was made up of fire.

"Come down," the voice told me. I didn't know what it meant but then again, I did, and slowly drifted through the Worlds until I was in the First World, the world I'd known before.

David was holding me, and we were floating over a hot black bed of embers. Coils of smoke drifted in the sky, and they were so beautiful, I wanted to follow them. I felt a tug as thought instantly translated toward action.

"Stay with me," he whispered, and the sound of it moved along my skin, inside my skin, through me in waves. I paused, caught.

This was real. The fire trucks flashing their lights at the curb—they were real. The firefighters aiming hoses at the destruction that had once been Star's house—that was real, too.

There were bones in the basement. I could see them, shining in the charred wood.

"Can she hear me?" someone asked, and I looked in the basement but there was no one there. "Jo, can you hear me?"

I focused and found there was someone right in front of me. He was heavy with flesh and wildly bright inside, and I wanted to reach out and sink into the fevered warmth of him but I knew, somehow, that it would be bad. And not just for him.

I blocked out the incredible glow of his spirit and focused on the real, the skin, the face. "Lewis?"

He nodded. He was still ragged and badly dressed, but his eyes were clear. His soul was clear. If the Demon Mark had left him tainted, I couldn't see where, or how. How strong was he, to survive that?

"You know what you did?" he asked. I didn't, but I had no idea how to express it; evidently, he read it in my eyes. "You took the Mark from David. Two can't exist in the same body. They destroyed each other."

Ah. That would explain why I felt so empty, so full, so weightless, so powerful. I'd inherited something. But I didn't feel… well, evil. Just vast.

"Can she hear me?" Lewis asked, looking past me. David was so warm against me, anchoring me against all the random currents that tried to pull me away. The smoke on the air, the heat rising off the fire—all so beautiful. Couldn't begin to believe how beautiful it all was.

"I think so," David said. "Jo. Concentrate. Make yourself flesh."

I didn't know what that meant, either, until I did it, and then suddenly there was flesh around me, and it was hurting, and I went to my knees and took David down with me.

Make myself flesh. Wait, what had I just been before?

"What happened?" I whispered. My lips felt dry, as if I'd never tasted water. "Star…"

"Star's dead," Lewis said. "She started the fire. I couldn't get her out—she wouldn't leave without the book."

The book was gone. That was… good? Wasn't it?

Lewis reached out and touched my face, then jerked back and shook his hand as if it was burned. Sucked his fingers. "She's hot."

"She can't control it yet," David said. "She'll learn."

This didn't make any sense. Nothing made any sense. "What happened?"

David's hand stroked the side of my face, down my neck, my shoulder. He folded me closer. My skin yearned toward his touch.

"You died," he said. "I felt you go. You'd taken part of me inside you with the Demon Mark. When your body—was destroyed—"

I remembered the bones in the ashes and shivered. No wonder the graceful ivory curves had fascinated me.

"I died," I said. "It killed me."

"I can't bring back the dead," David was saying. "No one can."

I felt a flash of my old humor. "Still here, though."

"Yes." He turned me in his arms to face him, and his eyes were bright, joyous copper, hotter than the sun, and I saw myself in them. A creature of fire. A black-haired, pale-skinned creature with eyes like the palest silver.