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"Sir, please, I have no idea what you&039;re-"

"Shut up" He didn&039;t raise his voice, but there was so dark and violent in it that lass, and he took a drink "How do you think all this works, Baldwin? You think the Wardens Association is just soooder fraternity, like the lions Club or the Shriners? We run the world That takes power More power than you can even i about, but so long as he was talking, I had breathing tiers It was all I could think of to do

"When Hurricane Andrew hit the shore in &039;92, it was a killer of the worst kind It was all set to destroy us, singly or in groups Somebody had to take on the responsibility to stop it" He snorted and tossed back the rest of the liquor "Some poor bastard like me But humans aren&039;t built that way, Baldwin They&039;re built to co I decided I should be cooperating "That&039;s e have the Djinn To take the stress"

"What crap You don&039;t know dick about Djinn, girl They have power, but they dole it out in little bits and pieces, always looking for ways to screw us- they hate us They&039;d kill us if they could" He rattled the ice in his glass and tried to suck the last drops of his drink froet killed No, to stop Andrew I needed soer"

He was insane Bad Bob was literally insane There wasn&039;t anything bigger than the Djinn except

I bit ainst rope, but that was nothing compared hat I was afraid he was about to do to ether now, and it made a hideous kind of sense

"A Deirl," he answered "Too bad, really I can&039;t afford to put -level of Demon this is, if d probably eat him alive, but it&039;d dao so Can&039;t die with this bastard in me"

"Wait-"

"Sorry, time&039;s up" Bad Bob put his drink doalked over to me, and put his hand on ht have been a coth into it and forced ainst the leather couch I kicked out at hiardless of how much pain tore at my arms and wrists "Don&039;t worry This&039;ll be quick Deoes in, and then I burn you You probably won&039;t feel ht back with every et him off me, away, because I could feel it in hi hi with rage, and reached out for a bottle of wine-very old, with a flaking, yellowed label and a cork that looked fossilized He worked the cork out of it, set the bottle on the floor, and said, "I need you"

In theout of the bottle in a puff of smoke, but that rarely happens, unless the Djinn is a traditionalist with a sense of humor Bad Bob&039;s Djinn just appeared-blip- without any dramatics at all I&039;ve alondered how Djinn decide how to look, and why they always seem to look so nearly human; this one was nearer than ht black tie, pin-striped shirt Young, but ancient around the eyes The eyes, of course, gave hiht the way a cat&039;s eyes reflect at night

"Sir?" he asked He didn&039;t even look at me

"Hold her down," Bad Bob said "Don&039;t kill her like you did the last one It&039;s hard enough to find a match, you know"

The Djinn leaned over and put his hand on ravity tripled and pinned ht I wanted to say soood; Bad Bob wasn&039;t listening, and his Djinn couldn&039;t do anything against his orders Don&039;t kill her like you did the last one His Djinn didn&039;t want the Deet his help

"Open her ertip on h I clenchedaway, felt ined it, but the Djinn&039;s touch seemed to make it less painful, less horrific Help me Please stop this But if he could, or if he even wanted to, there was no sign of it in those inhu in around the knife-sharp spike of fear, the desperate desire to get away Maybe I could pass out I wanted to pass out Anything not to feel this

The Djinn&039;s touch burned My lips slid open, and cool air hit the back offorce

Bad Bob bent over and touched his lips to h to create the bridge of flesh He tasted of booze and stank of fear, and I tried to screa inme in a way that even the worst rape couldn&039;t equal-it was insidefor a place to hide I tried to screa, down h me like a hand until it closed into a fist around my heart

The pain was so bad, I left ht, and that hen I saw the De around the core ofThe last of it slid out of Bad Bob and left hi and clear of taint

And utterly devoid of power He&039;d carried it for so long that it had eaten away the power he&039;d started with He was an empty shell of a man whose heart continued to beat, but I felt the horrible hollow space where this thing had been

And then his heart jumped, shuddered, and froze in his chest His face took on a dull sheen of surprise

Can&039;t die with this thing inside

I felt the particles charging aroundhis bloodied face toout his hand for power Because it was power for the last of the energy that kept Bad Bob alive I could taste the drowning blackness of his despair, the wailing terror of his death The Dean to taste as insidethat I couldn&039;t help but fight back It was as instinctive as gagging

I reached for power, and it ca me like a tornado It would wreak havoc on the real world, but I didn&039;t have a choice Every cell inout of me

In the real world, the dome house literally exploded Glass blew out froh the room at speeds impossible to withstand and shredded wood to splinters, plastic to shards The terra-cotta warrior exploded into dust Charged particles glittered and flashed and rolled like crystal waves around y,Every circuit in the house blew, frying electronics, starting fires in the walls In Oversight, the power draw flared photonegative, out of control, and ice crystals began to for air of the living roo hail the size of baseballs, soccer balls, hit the beach; I heard the hard, brittle impacts all over the house Temperatures soared, then dropped, as pressure rose Outside, over the sea, cloudsrotation

Bad Bob fell to the floor, a lifeless lu torn apart by the forces in the room By my oer, out of control

His Djinn disappeared into the maelstrom, and I saw the wine bottle picked up by the wind and hurtled against the far ith so er than sand

The leather couch I was still lying on was blown back with a tidal force of wind, and I rolled over debris Shards of glass everywhere; I barely noticed the cuts, but I ed piece and slashed at the ropes that held my hands until they parted with a ed; a little flesh-and-blood agony was nothing to worry about

I scra flashed, and I could feel the thing feeding insidedown every y It fed off stor inside me

I had to shut it off So-and force it to obey It was growing inside es; it would burst out of me like so warentle touched the back of my neck Breathe, a voice whispered inside th

I gasped in a breath Another The air felt warm, smelled faintly of ozone

The Deht

I opened my eyes and there, in front of me, was the Djinn Bad Bob&039;s Djinn He was a colu wonderful and terrible at the saain, and when I inhaled, I felt the fire go intolike raw lava down o

I was outside in the rain, in the cold, withThe surf pounded the dome house, sucked at it like a tasty treat Overhead, the eye of the storm whirled and stared down on me

Inside me, the Demon Mark shuddered and went quiet

I breathed out htning flashed, hit close, and I felt the burn of ozone on my flesh like the heat of a distant cold sun

And then I slammed back down, hard, into reality Cold, indy reality, the stor and dead things andinsideto find-sole under the skin There was only a faint, intricate black scorchunderneath stretch and murmur in its sleep

I went toI was there, huddled near the ruins of Bad Bob&039;s house, but I felt the Wardens when they arrived-Janice Langstrom, Bad Bob&039;s exec, and Ulrike Kohl Ulrike concentrated on the stor out at sea, but I could have told her it was useless; the storm was mine, keyed to me, born of my fury All she could do was tame it down to a sullen retreat

It was Janice who found h for nodding acquaintance I let her help me up to ether, more out of an instinctive desire for her not to see the Mark than any impulse to modesty "Oh, my God! What happened here?"

I opened my mouth to tell herand then didn&039;t I couldn&039;t even begin So in me-that wily, scared-to-death pri about the Deood-bye

I just shivered

She searched er than Bad Bob but not by much Moderately powerful Extremely perceptive

"That storrip on htened "Where is he? Where&039;s Bob?"