He hurtled at least twenty feet across the parking lot, hit, rolled, and lay there limp. I hesitated, shocked, and whipped my head back to stare at the open door of the motel room.
Inside, something large and hulking blinked luminous eyes at me, and I saw the glint of teeth.
And felt a sudden hot gust of wind whip around my legs, swirl up my body, and twist my hair around my face.
It took a step outside into the parking lot, and I had about a half a second to figure out what it was. What it wasn't was easy, because it damn sure wasn't human. It was too big, too twisted, too powerful. I instinctively used Oversight, and damn if I didn't see a great, big red ball of fire, twisting in on itself, full of agony and pain and breathtaking, jagged fury …
Oh shit.
That was a Djinn. And not just any Djinn. That was a Djinn infected with a Demon Mark. It was destroying itself in the fight, losing itself, and it might be able to win and survive, but meanwhile, it was being eaten alive and the Demon in it wanted to feed … to …
I became aware of three things: one, a police cruiser with flashing blue and red lights and a moaning siren was speeding up the road toward the motel; two, McCall was crawling over the pavement behind me; and three, that the body in pieces in the Dairy Queen had probably been a Warden.
And then the Djinn focused on me, and the Demon Mark recognized me as a Warden, and hunger flared in those glowing white-hot eyes. It lunged for me, and I didn't have any time for finesse; I skipped backwards, screaming, and reached out for the wind. If the Djinn wasn't anchoring itself completely, then the wind should disperse it enough to give me some time …
The wind did nothing but ruffle the rags the Djinn was still barely wearing.
She'd been female, at some point, or at least liked to manifest in female form.
I slammed a harder gust of wind at her, well aware that I was draining energy out of the atmosphere and something was going to have to create balance for it.
Molecules rushed in to fill empty spaces, vibrating faster; temperatures rose from the friction of atom against atom.
But it was too slow. Wind wasn't going to stop this thing, and the weather system was way too stable for me to get anything out of it in time to save my life. No rivers around to redirect …
Water. Strictly speaking, Djinn didn't need air to breathe; they could adapt themselves just fine. But one thing all cells need, no matter how artificial: they need water just to have form.
I'd never done it before, but it came to me in a blinding and rather scary flash, and I didn't stop to think, I just acted.
I reached out my power into a bubble, surrounded the Djinn, and called every microscopic speck of water out of it.
It was like watching something freeze-dry in time lapse … between one step and
another, the insane Djinn went from huge and bulky and twisted to dry and thin and twisted, a husk of what it had been. It had made itself too real, and reality required human building blocks. Without water, its muscles couldn't function to move. Nerves couldn't conduct impulses.
It let go of flesh and became vapor and flew at me, screaming. I threw up a wall of wind and slammed the vapor back against the cinder-block wall and held it there, pinned. It was strong, oh God it was strong, and it was full of hunger and black fury, and I couldn't keep this up all day. Too many variables, too many witnesses …
The Djinn snarled and solid or not, proved it was capable of a little weather-manipulation of its own; I sensed the wind coming and braced myself, but didn't dare let up on the Djinn to summon up any kind of shield. It hit me hard and fast, a linebacker of a wind packed with scouring sand, and I was knocked off balance and sprawled full length on the pavement, and the wind kept howling, growing, taking on a life of its own as it swept up sand and random trash into an unsteady broad circle around me.
Trying to form a dust devil. Dust devils are a version of a tornado, one without the killing interaction of moisture and air; they're a dry-air phenomenon, and lack the force to really kill.
Unless, of course, they're powered from an outside force, like the Djinn I was trying to hold helpless against the wall.
I felt my control slipping.
'David!' I yelled, and clawed my hair out of my eyes. 'David, I need — '
But my command was stopped in my throat, rammed back by a monster punch of wind that nearly blew out my lungs. I was pulled off the ground, whirling. I had a great view of the wind dying around the Djinn, and it reforming into flesh and blood, staring up at me and snarling as the dust devil tossed me around like a toy. Heat lightning shimmered across the sky.
The police car, speeding toward us, suddenly left the road and flipped over into the air four or five times, or maybe I lost count because of my own sickening spin … I saw it in flashes, the metal crunching, bits flying off, the horrible rending shriek of metal.
I had to stop this. Now.
I reached out for the wind, and tried to grab hold, but it was under the Djinn's control and fought me, fought me hard, lashed me bloody with debris and then dropped me with casual, cruel suddenness to the hard ground.
I rolled over, gasping, and saw the Djinn looming over me, and there was something in its mouth, something horrible and I remembered it all too well, the Demon twisting its way into my body and soul … never again, never again …
A boom like Armageddon tore the world in half. No, not the world, just the Djinn. It staggered back, a huge hole in its middle, surprise on that twisted face, and I smelled gunpowder and looked up to see Brian McCall standing there with his shotgun smoking in his hands. Pale and scraped, but upright. He pumped it and pulled the trigger a second time.
'You can't kill it!' I screamed at him, and spotted something shiny lying in the weeds growing next to the wall. I lunged for it, praying, and felt the Djinn gathering its insane strength behind me. When it struck, it wasn't going to screw around; it was going to flatten me, McCall, the motel, and everything in sight.
Or it was going to come after one of us and put that Demon Mark down our throats.
Either way, I couldn't let it happen.
There was a brown glass beer bottle half-buried in the weeds. I pulled it out, breathless, shaking, and held it up to the light.
No cracks.
Also, nothing to use for a cork.
No time to worry about it. I felt the hot rush of power behind me, rolled over on my back and held the bottle up in both hands toward the sky and the Djinn, who was falling on me like a storm, and screamed, 'Be thou bound to my service!
Be thou bound to — '
It grabbed me by the ankle and yanked. I slid across the parking lot in an abrading scrape of back on asphalt, and somehow managed not to drop the bottle.
McCall had his shotgun aimed, but there was no way he could do anything without hitting me as well, and besides, I wasn't sure the Djinn would even pay attention to a little pellet spray, not with a Warden in its hands.
'— to my service! Be thou — '
It fell on me, driving the breath out of me; it felt exactly like a two-hundred-pound wrestler had dropped with both knees onto my rib cage. I felt things crack, saw red flashing stars, and felt a jet of agony spray through me like acid. My third repetition dissolved into an inarticulate scream, and I felt the Djinn's hand — or whatever passed for it — scrabbling at my mouth, trying to hold it wide open …
Something yanked it off.
I blinked, whooping in painful gasps, and saw that another Djinn was materializing behind the insane one — bronze and gold, swirls of power, hot molten eyes, fury …
David.
He put his forearm across the other Djinn's throat and yanked it upright and screamed at me, 'Finish it!'
