Firestorm

anywhere. The Earth didn't use words. It spoke in the whisper of leaves, the hiss of grass, the groaning of rocks buried deep. Communication was something very different here, and I was completely unprepared, completely unworthy to try it. Not even an Earth Warden, which at least would have been something, some connection, however slight and fragile.

I was just dirt on the floor in this place. No, less than that. She'd at least understand dirt.

Her gaze slowly shifted away, toward the altar, the flickering banks of candles on either side in their red glass holders, and the astonishingly beautiful vista stretching out before us.

She wanted something from me, and I had no idea what it was, or how to provide it.

I felt the gradual withdrawal of her presence from me.

I was being dismissed.

'No!' I said, and held up my hands. 'Please! Please listen to me, I need you to understand—'

No answer. She didn't even blink. It was as if I didn't even exist to her anymore. Maybe I didn't. Time was different in her world. Geologic. Human lives came and went faster than the ticks on a clock.

'Please!' This time, I shouted it, and I did something that was either very, very brave or abysmally stupid: I reached out to her, and took her hand. It felt warm and rough, more like sandstone than flesh. 'Please listen.'

Not a flicker. Not a tremor. I'd come so far, fought so hard, run so fast… and she was ignoring me. Unlike Rahel, this wasn't someone I could give a hard right cross to the chin to get her attention. There was a strong sense of deep holiness here. Respect was required.

Respect was demanded.

Outside of the glass windows, I saw the sky… change. It had been getting darker, but now it curdled, like ink dropped in clear water—a sense of something wrong, something desperately and fatally wrong. I felt it happen inside of myself, too. I felt the deathclock we all carried, all mortal things, speed up.

Oh God. Was she going to just wipe everything clean? All life? Destroy it all and wait that long eternity for things to grow again? Or would the Djinn step back into their place as firstborn, best loved?

I went up into the aetheric, and there I saw it for what it was. A storm coming. A storm that showed bloodred, full of fury and power. I felt a tethering tug, and looked down at my aetheric form to see that there was a line, a thin, unbreakable line stretching from the center of my being up into that storm.

It was connected to me, and as I looked around, I saw hundreds of lines. Thousands. Millions. Like solid raindrops, each leading down to a human life. A human who'd just felt an instant of shadow, of doubt in his or her own immortality.

Who'd had the sensation of someone walking over their graves. Six billion graves, and only one entity walking, but it only took the one.

It was starting.

'Please,' I said. 'Please don't do this. We don't deserve this. We can't deserve this! Dammit! What do you want me to say?'

The Oracle trembled, a sudden all-over shake, and I felt the Earth itself groan in response. What the hell—?

Her eyes closed, and the hand I was holding suddenly turned and took hold of me. Hard, hot, unyielding. I felt the tremors continue, both through my knees and where she was clutching my fingers. Something was wrong. Terrifyingly wrong.

Oh no.

I took an aching breath and reached forward to move the neck of the Oracle's robes aside, and there, battened on her like a black nest of worms, was the Demon Mark. The skin around it was drained white, leached of life, and I could see the black writhing tentacles bulging under the skin. It was burrowing.

I was too late. It already had a firm grip on her.

I reached out and put both hands on the Demon Mark, willing it to come to me. It ignored me, burrowing for the rich, burning source of power that was the Oracle. I was insignificant. There was no way I had enough power to make it come to me.

There was something coming toward us, digging through stone and concrete. Something dark and terrible. The adult Demon was on its way here, following me or drawn to the immense outpouring of power that was going on—no telling. But we didn't have long.

None of us did. I could feel the terrible pull inside of my life being dragged away.

The Oracle's power was compromised as it tried to fight the infection of the Demon Mark, but even so, it was channeling the intention of the Mother to wipe humanity out of her way.

I couldn't stop it. I couldn't even heal the Oracle, which was the only way I could even begin to make things right.

'Take my hand.' A rusty, exhausted voice. I looked aside and saw Rahel, holding out a trembling, blood- stained hand on which the claws had raggedly broken. When I took it, it felt cold.

She extended her hand to Alice—Venna—who was equally damaged. The line stretched on. Djinn after Djinn after Djinn. And with them, humans. I recognized a few Wardens. A few members of the Ma'at.

A chain of hands, joined one to the other, building a circuit of power that, while it couldn't possible be as huge as the potential of the Oracle, was a much easier target.

Come on, I begged the Demon Mark. Come on, you sick little freak. Take us. You know you want it.

It wasn't coming. I hissed in frustration, grabbed hold of it, and pulled with all the fury and grief and rage in me. Felt it spiral through the circuit of hands, rebound, and come back again, stronger. Stronger still.

They poured their power into me, and the Demon Mark moved in my hand, turned, and struck. It was enraged, and my skin was nothing like the barrier of the Oracle's; it tore into me with full force, already bloated to twice its original size, and ripped toward my heart.

I let go of Rahel's hand just as the adult Demon erupted from the stone beneath my feet, scattering razor- edged shards like thrown knives. I felt the hot cuts of the debris, and hit the floor, panting, gagging on the sensation of the Demon Mark.

I don't know why I thought it might work. Don't know why it did work, except that I knew that two Demon Marks couldn't touch without fighting. Destroying each other. I knew that because having two of them inside me had killed me, once.

I turned and threw myself directly on the Demon, wrapping my arms around it.

It didn't feel like I'd expected it to feel. I'd thought it would be cold, ice-cold, and sharp to the touch, but it was lukewarm, and its flesh—if that was flesh—was only semisolid, sickeningly fragile. I felt its talons dig into my shoulders to push me away, but I pressed harder against it, driving my hand into its chest.

And I felt the Demon Mark stop its burrowing, stir, and turn. It raced down my trembling, bloody arm, distending the skin as it went, sliding like a bundle of worms.

It didn't care what kind of damage it did, and it felt like being set on fire from the inside. Like having every muscle ruptured, every bone shattered on the way. I screamed, but I didn't let myself pull away.

The Demon Mark erupted out of the palm of my hand, the one bearing the mark of the Wardens, and slammed into the center of the adult Demon.

I looked up at it, but there was no face, no sense of any sort of humanity to it. I couldn't tell if it felt pain, or fear, or even disappointment.

And then it screamed, a high thin metal sound, and plunged back through the hole and into the dark.

Gone.

Maybe dead, maybe not, but it was in trouble.

I collapsed to my knees, bleeding, whimpering, exhausted. The death clock inside of me was ticking slowly, inexorably down.

'Please,' I whispered. 'We saved you. Please stop this.'

The Oracle hadn't moved from where she sat on the bench, but now, her head turned. I don't know what she saw, because her eyes were white. Pure white, with a tiny dot of black for pupil. Eerie and totally inhuman.

She said nothing. Did nothing else. But at least I had her attention.

'We're not invaders,' I gasped. 'Maybe we're greedy, and selfish, and stupid, but that's our nature. That's