Caine, Rachel-Short Stories

by Rachel Caine

  Leaving me stuck on the couch, with the supernatural scary person.

  “So,” I said, and guzzled mojito. “What exactly do you do to have fun when you, ah, go out?”

  “People watch,” Rahel said. Her lips shaped a smile, but the expression in her eyes was a lot more forbidding. “Absorb the culture. It’s necessary, you know. Djinn must stay connected to the world around them if we are to blend in.”

  “Oh, yeah, honey, you blend,” I said. The rum was starting to take effect. “You do this often?”

  “Often enough,” she said. “I like coming to places like this. So much energy. So much — passion.” Her eyes drifted half-closed, and she sipped champagne. “Here is where people are the most honest, I think. In their quest to fulfill their most basic urges.”

  “I’m not here to fulfill any basic urges, beyond swilling some ethanol,” I said. “Look. No condoms.” I opened the purse to prove it. Which earned me a what the hell? look from a Djinn. That had to be a first. “I’m just here because Cherise thought it’d be a good idea for me to get out and, you know, relax. Loosen up. Meet people.”

  “Dance,” Rahel said. “Yes?”

  “Yes. Of course, dance.”

  “I used to dance.” She sounded positively wistful about it. “Before — “

  “Before?”

  “Before I was as I am now,” she said. “When I was a girl.”

  I knew that Rahel was what was known as a New Djinn — that she’d been born human, died, and been reborn as a Djinn. But somehow, there wasn’t much human about her. Far less than there was in David, for instance, or even Alice, who’d never been human at all. Rahel always felt … other.

  So hearing her talk about being a girl was startling. “Tell me about what it was like, when you were young,” I said. “Not like this, I’m guessing.”

  She laughed. “More like this than you could suppose. My people danced constantly. We danced for power, for celebration, for prayer, for rain, for sun, for food, for the waning of the moon. And yes, it was the same for us — we found lovers this way, dancing, admiring, feeling the hot flutter of attraction as we danced. You have taken this ritual, stripped away the magic, but the core is still there. Still living.”

  I took another gulp of my drink and tasted sugar. Oh. Already down to the bottom. Probably ought to take it slower. “How old were you when — “

  “When my people died?” Rahel toyed with her champagne glass, not quite looking at me. “Seventeen. Old enough to be a mother twice over. We married early in my day. We died early, too.”

  “How did it — “

  “I will not relive my horror for your amusement,” she interrupted, and her eyes focused directly on mine with unmistakable threat. “Ask any of us for tales of our past, and you will find slaughter, suffering, and pain. I did not come here to dredge up such memories.”

  “Sorry.” I swallowed, tasting mint and rum and sugar, and wished desperately that I’d gone with Cherise. Not too late, of course, I could get up and walk away. But Rahel was holding the stare, and I didn’t dare look away.

  “I worry,” Rahel said, “about your intentions.”

  I blinked. “What?”

  “Toward David.”

  “I — what?”

  “He looks at you and can’t see past his own passion,” she said. “But I know humans, I know them perhaps better than he does. Are you constant, Joanne? Or will you find a lover elsewhere, and betray him? I ask because humans are flawed, and their love is flawed.”

  She was warning me. I was sick of being warned. Everybody had hammered it into me, from Lewis to David himself, and now Rahel. Frankly, I was tired of people doubting me.

  “Look,” I said, and put the empty mojito glass on the table. “Maybe I’m flawed. Maybe I’m screwed up. Maybe I’m just a weak-willed human woman with the spine of a jellyfish. But I’m not going to betray David. Ever.” I let a beat and a breath go by. “You don’t believe me.”

  Her eyes narrowed. “No,” she said. “I don’t. Humans are not capable of the kind of commitment that we feel.”

  “What about Patrick and Sara?” Patrick had been human. Sara had been Djinn. And the two of them had loved with a passion that had never faltered.

  I realized, the second I said it, that I’d invoked the wrong thing. I hadn’t followed that to its logical conclusion — to the tragedy of the romance. Patrick, dying. Sara reaching out to break the laws of the universe to drag him across to the Djinn, and breaking the core of her own power in the process. Dooming herself to a half-life existence as an Ifrit, preying on other Djinn for her very life.

  Rahel said, “Ah, yes. I see you comprehend my point. Such tales never end happily.”

  “Ours will.”

  “I admire your determination, if not your objectivity.” She drank the rest of her champagne in a single gulp. She stood up, shimmying her hips to get all her chiffon ruffles in place. She was impossibly tall, impossibly gorgeous, and she held out her hand to me. “Come.”

  I frowned at her. “Where?”

  “To dance.”

  Her hand felt dry and hot in mine, and she led me out through the VIP doors and into the madhouse of the dance floor, of people moving and swaying together. Cherise was dirty-dancing with Fredo, looking absolutely beautiful, rapt and ecstatic in the moment. Fredo was looking like the experience was approaching rapture for him, too.

  Rahel’s hand slipped out of mine, and the lights and music spun me around, and I felt the pulse building inside of me. I saw her moving in an alien, sinuous rhythm, dancing with no one and everyone, and then Fredo turned to me and included me in the dance, and I felt my body taking over, reaching for that elusive moment, that connection that tied us all together in that moment.

  The music threaded its way through my ears, through my body, and spun me around in a frenzy of lights and passion.

  I stopped, because at the edge of the dance floor stood a dark shape, unmoving, facing me. Light flickered and caught his face, highlighted the intensity of his stare and the beautiful face. David had left off his glasses, and traded in his plain clothes for a soft, matte-black shirt and tight black leather pants.

  My breath left me in a rush.

  Neither of us moved for a moment, and then he walked slowly toward me, and just as I’d imagined, the crowd parted in front of him. He came closer, closer, until our bodies brushed together. He leaned down to put his lips close to my ear, and said, “I know it’s your night out with Cherise, but — “

  I grabbed the collar of his shirt and kissed him. He tasted like caramel and rum, and I wondered if he’d been drinking. If he had, it looked fantastic on him.

  “Dance with me,” I said.

  His body fit in with the curves of mine. We kissed again, slowly, deeply, and then his hand found the hollow of my back and I bent backward, relying on his strength to support me as my hair brushed the floor. He lifted me sharply, hard against him, and my right leg lifted of its own accord and wrapped around the back of his thigh. Holding him there. Our eyes were inches apart, and his were burning. Incandescent even in the flaring, uncertain light of the club.

  He made a low, rough sound in the back of his throat, and I felt his hand move lower, pressing my hips closer against his. His breath pistoned hot against my neck as I rotated my hips, gently at first, then in widening, provocative circles. We were pressed together, every muscle trembling and full of tension, humming like two halves of a circuit. Our lips were close enough to touch, but we didn’t kiss. I slid my hands down the slick, warm leather of his hips. The heat inside me had built to a bonfire, flushing my cheeks, my lips, glowing right under my skin.

  I turned my back to him, and oh, yes, that was good, there was absolutely no disguising how aroused he was right now. I rubbed slowly up and down against him, and felt his hands wrap around my hips to pull me breathlessly close. He kissed my neck, feather-light, and I felt myself go weak against him. His hands were so hot they seemed to burn through the thin b
arrier of cloth to sear their imprint directly on my skin. As incredible as it seemed, I was pretty sure it wouldn’t take much for either one of us to climax right here on the dance floor, in these moving, liquid shadows.

  Magic, Rahel had called it. And ritual.

  “Jo,” David whispered. Voice lower now, deeper in his throat, a purr like velvet on her skin. “Turn around.”

  I did, never moving away from him, and we were so close all that held us separate were our clothes and some last vestige of sanity. His hands left my hips, slid up between us, and left trails of heat where they touched. His lips were touching mine now, not quite a kiss, an unbearable tease for both of us. “Having fun?” he asked. Despite the constant driving beat of the music — the deafening beat — I could hear every suggestive nuance of what he said.

  “You’re kidding.” My voice was uneven and out of control. “Not sure fun quite covers this.”

  Another low-in-the-throat, amused rumble, subsonic and audible to me mainly through the vibration in my skin. His lips moved down the column of my throat, and he knew just where to focus their heat where I was most needy, most vulnerable. I felt a tremble building inside, a crescendo that followed the building climax of the music. His teeth scraped along the tender line of my throat, and I pressed harder against him, out of breath and wild and vibrating right out of my skin. I caught sight of Cherise laughing, whirling in the arms of the tall, gorgeous Fredo, and Rahel, dancing an ancient sensual rhythm, face alight and exultant in the strobing flashes of color.

  Ladies’ night.

  I could get used to this.

  Weather Warden ss

  Shiny

  (from Chicks Kick Butt)

  We were enjoying a rare day that did not include doom and apocalypse, and wonder of wonders, it was one of those balmy, beautiful early-summer days that reminded me why I lived in Florida.

  It had been David’s idea to do a beach picnic, which, given the lovely, mild weather, was a fantastic idea, but it had been mine to take a drive. A nice long one, on winding roads, for the sheer pleasure of putting tires to asphalt and seeing the world. So we had compromised on a long drive followed by a beach picnic, which was a perfect thing to do on such a lovely day.

  Me, I loved to get behind the wheel even more than the prospect of the beach itself. I especially loved to drive really good cars, and this one, a Viper, was right up there in my ranking of awesome rides. Not as sweet as my long-lost Mustang Mona, who’d been a casualty of life in the Weather Warden ranks, but still: nice, and powerful.

  David had never said one way or another whether he liked cars, but I suspected he did. Although not much impresses a Djinn. This is an unalterable fact of the world: Djinn–or genies–have been around since the dawn of time, although some are certainly newer than others, and one thing they all share is a sense of historical perspective. By the time you get to your first few hundred years, much less few thousand, I suspect, the “been there, done that” feeling is overwhelming.

  Which is why it seemed so unusual to hear my Djinn lover David let out a low whistle as I powered through a turn, and say, “That’s something you don’t see every day.”

  I peeled my attention back from the curve and looked where he was looking. Just off the road, with the backdrop of the wetlands, was a mob of vehicles and people, and massive industrial video cameras–high-definition ones, I assumed. Everyone looked ridiculously casual in dress, and highly professional in what he or she was doing.

  “Commercial shoot,” I said. It wasn’t that astonishing, in this part of the world. Everybody loved the colors and lifestyle here, and there were probably more still and video cameras clicking away here than anywhere else in the country, except Hollywood. And maybe New York City. “What’s so special…”

  And then I saw it.

  It was a silvery vision of a car, elegant as something designed by a classical sculptor. Michelangelo, maybe, if he’d worked in metal and sheer engine power. I instinctively took my foot off the gas, staring, because in all my extensive years of car fetishizing, I’d never actually seen anything that cool with my own eyes.

  I pulled the Viper over to the side of the road, barely noticing the crunch of tires on gravel, and stared. My mouth was probably hanging open, too. Honestly, David was right–you just did not see that every day. Or, in fact, any day, unless you worked at an Italian car manufacturer, or had $1.7 million to throw around on a set of wheels. “That,” I said, “is a freaking Bugatti Veyron. In the Everglades.” It wasn’t the fastest car in the world–maybe number two?–but it was, to my mind, the most elegantly designed. And, not coincidentally, the most expensive.

  David let out a little snort of laughter. “I wasn’t talking about the car,” he said. Well, of course he wasn’t, but I was still adjusting to the fact that there was a Bugatti Veyron sitting there, not twenty feet away from me. A couple of staffers for the shoot were polishing it with soft cloths, not that it needed the help to look its best. I blinked and tried to see what else was in the picture.

  Ah. He was talking about the girl. The one in the bikini.

  The one in the diamond bikini. Not a bikini with diamonds, not a blinged-out piece of spandex … an actual bikini, made of diamonds. Now that I’d noticed her, it was hard to see how I’d missed her in the first place–the glitter of all those facets was blinding. The girl wearing the thing was getting herself powdered–last-minute primping, just like the car–and she looked almost as sleek and expensive as what she was wearing, and what her backdrop would be. I presumed she was a world-class model, or she wouldn’t be here acting as the prop for all that loot. You didn’t go cheap on the talent in a thing like this.

  I blinked as a cloud blotted out the sun. No, not a cloud … a shadow, and then a body, big enough to present a solid flesh barrier to me catching any more glimpses of car, girl, or diamonds. He was, unmistakably, security. I could cleverly discern this by reading the giant letters in white on his black T-shirt, which read SECURITY, but even had he been unlabeled, there would really have been no mistaking him for anything else. He was professional muscle; whether he took it to bodyguarding a star, bouncing a club, or donning an overdone belt as a pro wrestler, he’d made a career out of intimidation.

  “Hi,” I said brightly. He scowled down at me from way, way up high. Tall, not only broadly built. “Just wanted to see what was going on.”

  “Nothing, ma’am,” he said. “Move on, please.”

  “I’m not in the way.” I had no real reason not to immediately put the Viper in gear and drive on, but I didn’t like being scowled at. Or ordered around. “That’s a Bugatti Veyron, right?”

  “No idea. Move on.”

  “Look–what’s your name?”

  “Steve.”

  “Steve, I promise, I’m just looking. Give me a second and I’ll go.”

  Instead, Steve took a step back and waved a hand, and from somewhere behind me, two uniformed Florida state troopers sauntered over, one on my side of the car, one on David’s. The saunter was deceptive, because I didn’t for a moment believe they were being relaxed about it. “Miss,” said the one who bent over on my side of the window. He had a thick Southern accent, a little too Southern for Florida. I was guessing he was a Georgia transplant. “You need to move along now, unless you’ve got a pass.”

  David reached into the glove box and brought out something in an envelope, which he handed over without a word to the officer on his side of the car. The trooper unfolded the paper, read it, and said to his partner, “They’ve got a pass, Joe.”

  “They do? Let me see that!”

  The two passed the paper back and forth for a while, then huddled with the security guard, who came back and leaned in David’s window this time. David was noticeably not bothered or intimidated; he even looked amused, from the light glittering in his brown-bronze eyes. (He was trying to keep his Djinn side from showing, at least. Thankfully.)

  “Where’d you get this?” Mr. Security demanded, flourishing
the paper.

  David jerked his chin at the model. “From her,” he said. “She’s my sister.”

  “Your what?” As if no supermodel in the world had siblings, or parents, or any kind of family. Well, they did often look lab-grown, that was a true fact.

  “Ask her,” David said, raising his eyebrows. The security dude stalked off, as much as someone so muscle-bound could effectively stalk, and arrived next to the diamond model. He bent over and spoke to her. She leaned past him, looking at David, and then smiled.

  “David?” I asked, in a voice that was probably way too confused. “Who is that?”

  He smiled, but didn’t answer. Annoying.

  Security Steve was trudging his way back, and he looked … apologetic. Not that he had a very mobile sort of face, but I got the subtlety from the hangdog set of his slumped shoulders. He leaned in and said, in a much different kind of voice, “Sorry, sir. Didn’t know who you were. Miss, why don’t you park right over there, next to the director’s car? Miss Whitney wants to say hello.”

  “Miss Whitney,” I repeated, and followed parking instructions as David continued with that Cheshire cat grin. “Do I even want to know how you’ve picked up a sudden sister named Miss Whitney?”

  “The usual way,” he said. “At least, for me.”

  “She’s Djinn,” I guessed. “New Djinn.”

  “Not just new. She’s only a few years old. Generationally, she’s no older than you.”

  Okay, that was bad news. Whitney was a Djinn–okay, fine, I’d stopped trying to figure out why David liked me better than hot immortal chicks that could move mountains and look any way he wanted them. But the fact was, she was actually my own age, and looked about ten years younger, and at least a dozen points hotter, which already sucked. She was also wearing a couple of million dollars of high-carat diamonds in a skimpy little outfit that left nothing at all to the imagination, not even how expert her bikini wax was.