"A Demon," I whispered. "You took on a Demon."

"Smart girl," he answered. "Too bad, really. I can't afford to put my Djinn out of commission with this thing—level of Demon this is, if d probably eat him alive, but it'd damn sure poison him past usefulness— so it has to go somewhere. My heart's going. Can't die with this bastard in me."

"Wait—"

"Sorry, time's up." Bad Bob put his drink down, walked over to me, and put his hand on my forehead. His skin felt ice cold. It might have been a compassionate gesture, but he put some strength into it and forced my head down, pinning me against the leather couch. I kicked out at him, writhed, wriggled like an eel regardless of how much pain tore at my arms and wrists. "Don't worry. This'll be quick. Demon goes in, and then I burn you. You probably won't feel much pain at all."

He tried to pry my mouth open. I fought back with every muscle in my body, desperate to get him off me, away, because I could feel it in him now, a black cold hunger devouring him from inside.

"Dammit!" He backed off, blue eyes glittering 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 the movies they always show Djinn coming out 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's Djinn just appeared—blip— without any dramatics at all. I've always wondered how Djinn decide how to look, and why they always seem to look so nearly human; this one was nearer than most. He looked like an accountant. Suit, straight black tie, pin-striped shirt. Young, but ancient around the eyes. The eyes, of course, gave him away: a kind of phosphorescent green that caught daylight the way a cat's eyes reflect at night.

"Sir?" he asked. He didn't even look at me.

"Hold her down," Bad Bob said. "Don't kill her like you did the last one. It's hard enough to find a match, you know."

The Djinn leaned over and put his hand on my forehead. Instantly, gravity tripled and pinned me down; made it an effort to drag in a breath, much less fight. I wanted to say something, but I knew it wouldn't do any good; Bad Bob wasn't listening, and his Djinn couldn't do anything against his orders. Don't kill her like you did the last one. His Djinn didn't want the Demon moved. Maybe, if I could think fast enough, I could get his help….

"Open her mouth," Bad Bob said. The Djinn laid one fingertip on my lips, and even though I clenched my jaw muscles, I felt it all slipping away, felt my lips parting. Oh, God, no. Maybe I imagined it, but the Djinn'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 inhuman green eyes, clear as emeralds. I felt gray edging 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's touch burned. My lips slid open, and cool air hit the back of my throat with drowning force.

Bad Bob bent over and touched his lips to mine. Not a deep kiss, just a touch. Just enough to create the bridge of flesh. He tasted of booze and stank of fear, and I tried to scream….

Too late.

I felt it squirming in my mouth, shooting tendrils down my throat, invading me in a way that even the worst rape couldn't equal—it was inside me, ripping furiously through my flesh, looking for a place to hide. I tried to scream, tried to vomit, tried to die, but it just kept going, down my throat, burning in my chest, squirming and moving through me like a hand until it closed into a fist around my heart.

The pain was so bad, I left my body and escaped into Oversight, and that was when I saw the Demon Mark for the first time. A black nest of tendrils writhing around the core of my magic, my life, feeding. The last of it slid out of Bad Bob and left him shining and clear of taint.

And utterly devoid of power. He'd carried it for so long that it had eaten away the power he'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't die with this thing inside me.

Oh, God, no. This couldn't be happening.

I felt the particles charging around me, and it reminded me suddenly of Lewis, turning his bloodied face to me, holding out his hand for power. Because it was power forming around me, funneling through me. Taking 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 Demon Mark sucked it down and began to taste what was inside me, too, and the sensation was so bitterly wrong that I couldn't help but fight back. It was as instinctive as gagging.

I reached for power, and it came, a rolling white wave through Oversight, circling me like a tornado. It would wreak havoc on the real world, but I didn't have a choice. Every cell in my body, real or aetheric, was screaming to get that thing out of me.

In the real world, the dome house literally exploded. Glass blew out from the windows in a pulverized mist. Wind tore through 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 me, storm-ready. So much potential energy, my hair lifted and crackled with it, on the verge of burning. 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 form around minute particles of dust in the swirling air of the living room.

Outside, steaming 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, clouds massed with incredible speed, darkened, began a lowering rotation.

Bad Bob fell to the floor, a lifeless lump of flesh, already being torn apart by the forces in the room. By my own power, 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 wall with so much force, it literally vanished into crystals no larger 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 managed to get my fingers around a sharp needle-edged piece and slashed at the ropes that held my hands until they parted with a moist snap. It hurt, but my standards of pain had changed; a little flesh-and-blood agony was nothing to worry about.

I scrambled until I found a wall at my back. Lightning flashed, and I could feel the thing feeding inside me, out of control; greedy little bastard sucking down every mote of energy. It fed off storms. It fed off the power burning inside me.

I had to shut it off. Somehow, I had to reach down into that—thing—and force it to obey. It was growing inside me, growing angles and cutting edges; it would burst out of me like some evil child and then… and then…

Something warm and gentle touched the back of my neck. Breathe, a voice whispered inside me. Under my skin. Child of air, breathe in your strength.