Chill Factor

by Rachel Caine

Page 5

  And then I realized that I could also be accused of being shallow, hyperactively on the make, and mouthy. I hoped I was smart, though. Smarter, anyway.

  We turned off on a paved road and passed under a big wrought-iron gate decorated with-I'm not kidding-the chromed silhouette of a nude woman, the exact copy of what you see on taste-free truckers' mud flaps. The name over the entrance was FANTASY RANCH. Oh, yeah, this was going to be fun.

  The house was an overdone Tudor style, ridiculous out here on the prairie. There was a struggling, desperately green lawn in front that looked suspiciously like it might have been freshly spray painted. A garage with three cars, all crap-year Corvettes. All red, of course. In the corner, a gold pimp-trim Cadillac Seville, maroon.

  He kept chatting me up all the way up the front walk, but I wasn't listening; I was looking into the aetheric. Oversight gives you a nice lay of the land, particularly since there's a fourth-dimensional time layer to it that represents the past. The history of Chaz's pad was nothing to be proud of. On the aetheric, the place showed its true character. A shell of a place, barely there. . . overlaid with shadows. That was kind of sad. Even the place where he lived didn't make much of an impression on the world.

  Neither did Chaz himself. People tended to manifest on the aetheric in visual representations of their self-image; his looked pretty much like a sad, faded image of his physical form. I wondered what he saw when he looked at me. People tended to get the oddest expressions.

  Well, the only good news was that Chaz wasn't likely to be a serial killer, not with a basically boring aetheric presence like this. Not that I couldn't defend myself, but it was nice not to have to worry about it. I had plenty of other things on my mind.

  His house was self-consciously tacky-retro-seventies without any semblance of a cool factor. He made reference to the water bed. I shut him down and made it clear that I expected to be shown to the home office.

  It was at the back of the house, and it looked like he'd set it up from some office catalog rather than to suit any kind of actual work process; everything was expensive, but nothing was very good. The filing cabinet was some exotic handcrafted wood, but the drawers stuck. Inside, there was a chaos of unmarked folders, piles of haphazard papers, crap mixed in with vital documents. I'd heard he hadn't filed quarterly reports in a year; they were probably here, stuffed in with downloaded porn photos. The records I found. . . well, threadbare would have been a generous description.

  After two hours I was ready to scream and blow the whole place away with a tornado. Instead-reminding myself that I was a professional, dammit-I grabbed and boxed up everything that looked remotely interesting, while Chaz's smile got thinner and thinner, and wrote him out a receipt for what I'd taken.

  The Jag's trunk was roomy. I got six boxes in there, added the remaining four to the backseat, and headed back to the hotel.

  Time to settle in with room service tuna salad and pay per-view movies while I struggled through the paperwork.

  It was going to be a long, long audit.

  I drifted back to the present, and realized that instead of lulling myself to sleep I was lying in the dark, staring up at the ceiling and watching rain patterns ripple across the spackle. The light out in the parking lot was a bright blue-white, like sustained lightning.

  I considered doing something about the rain, but so long as it didn't develop into something devastating, I decided to let it ride. There were Weather Wardens aplenty roaming around the country; the Wardens Association was on the verge of chaos, what with the senior leadership being dead and all hell breaking loose out here in the desert. I was here with a specific job, and I ought to concentrate on it.

  Like last time. And look how that had turned out.

  I closed my eyes on a vision of blood and tried, uselessly, to sleep.

  I woke up, not remembering drifting off, to find myself on my right side, staring into David's face. He was watching me. I yawned, stretched, and inventoried the need for a good toothbrushing, not to mention mouthwashing-more things I hadn't needed to deal with when Djinn. Those halcyon days were making resuming normal life one giant pain in the ass.

  "Sleep well?" David asked.

  I hadn't, and he knew it. "Where'd you go?. . . No, I take it back, I don't really want to know. Why did you go?"

  "We were going to fight. " He lifted a hand and traced a fingertip up the outside of my arm to my shoulder. "I didn't see any reason it had to happen. You were just tired and discouraged. "

  "Fighting can lead to other things. " It had before. Our first real lovemaking had happened as the result of a fight in a hotel. I saw the memory move in him, too.

  "No need to fight to have that. " His voice had dropped an octave, gone even quieter, but there was a tension behind it that made him seem even more alive, even more intense. The light glide of his touch on me took a left turn, followed the line of my collarbone.

  "Close the curtains," I whispered. Behind him, the curtains snapped shut, all on their own, blocking out the frowning clouds and the steady, mournful pulse of rain. It occurred to me, late and with an electric jolt to the spine, that David was under the covers with me, and he'd already done away with the bother of clothes. His glasses lay carefully folded on the nightstand, next to the fragile blue glitter of his bottle.

  Nothing between us but skin, mine real-whatever that meant-and his manifested by will and magic. And all the more real for that, because he'd chosen this. Chosen me.

  I felt cold. As if he knew it, he put his arms around me and pulled me close to his heat. His lips pressed a burning kiss on my forehead, a benediction I didn't deserve, and slowly traveled down to my mouth. Sweet, slow, leisurely kisses, gentle as the rain outside. Healing the chill inside me, filling the empty places.

  He murmured something into my open mouth- words I didn't know, in a language like liquid fire. I pulled away a little, looking into his eyes. So much passion in him, constrained by so much will.

  "What did that mean?" I asked him. He traced the line of my lips with his fingertips like a blind man memorizing the shape of my face, and didn't answer. "David, what did that mean?"

  I felt him go tense against me. The lazy focus of his eyes sharpened. "Don't," he warned me.

  "What did that mean?" I was being very specifically repetitive, and I felt the surge of power as the Rule of Three kicked in. He was compelled to answer me truthfully, but of course, the truth with Djinn could be fluid. It wouldn't be outside the boundaries for him to reply to me in another language. We could play this game all day, if he felt inclined. Owning his bottle didn't mean I owned his soul.

  But he didn't try to avoid it. His eyes went the color of dark, tarnished brass, almost human, and his hand went still against my cheek.

  "It's part of a ritual," he said. "The literal translation is that I will mourn you when you're gone. Because you're mortal, and you take stupid risks, and I'm going to lose you. I hate it, but I know it's going to happen. Because you won't be sensible. "

  There wasn't a breath between us. Skin on skin, sealed together with sweat as body heat rose. My whole body was aching and throbbing for him, but my mind kept struggling.

  "What kind of ritual?"

  "Joanne-"

  "What kind of ritual?" No answer. "What kind of ritual?"

  This time, the words were in that liquid-fire language again. The language of the Djinn, but with a rough edge to them that sounded human. He pulled me to him again, put those burning lips to the column of my throat, and made me arch uncontrollably against him. It wasn't exactly clear in this relationship who owned who, I thought when I was capable of thinking. And he wasn't going to answer me. Not in words.

  His hands were everywhere on me, shivering my skin into goose bumps, making me moan with need and delight. Too long, it's been too long. . . He rolled me over on my back, settled his weight on top of me, took hold of my wrists, and pinned them on either side of
the black spill of my hair, tormenting me with kisses and friction that didn't put him where I needed him to be.

  "God, David, please. . . " I whispered. I wasn't sure what I was asking, whether it was for the white-hot surge of flesh between us or the answers to my questions. Or something else entirely. I felt like crying, and I didn't know why. My heart hammered like a cheap toy, fragile and unreliable, one beat at a time between me and the end of things. I hadn't faced the crashing, intimate knowledge of my own mortality, because I couldn't. I was always hiding from it in action, chasing after what came next.

  Not David. He'd faced it. He'd been afraid of losing me, of having every moment between us threaten to be the last. I'd made a being of fire and power afraid.

  He looked merciless staring down at me, except for the vulnerability in his eyes. The odd, unexpected humanity. "Please don't ask me what it means. "

  There was something in it that made my heart break. I whispered, "I won't," and felt the tension ease out of him. "Because you're going to tell me. "

  "You have to trust me. "

  I choked on a laugh. "Who's on top here?"

  He let go of my wrists, sat up on his knees. The sheet slid away. The lamps gilded his skin, and I felt my breath catch and tear something inside of me. Some last shred of resistance.

  His hands, hot on my thighs. Moving them.

  "You have to trust me," he repeated. It was only a whisper now, and his eyes had kindled a bright new flame. "Can you do that?"

  "Yes. "

  "You're sure?"

  "Yes!" I pushed myself up on straight arms, looking into his eyes. Slowly bent my knees and drew them up, drawing him in with the motion.

  His teeth lightly grazed the skin of my shoulder. I put my arms around him, holding him, feeling the waves surge and break. Waves of power, transforming and pure.

  He whispered words against me that broke me apart, destroyed me, rebuilt me as we moved, and I didn't recognize a word of it, and it no longer mattered, because now I understood. The way flesh accepts touch, or lungs accept air.

  He was telling me he loved me, the way Djinn say the words, and it was more beautiful and more terrifying than the banners of war.

  I fell asleep in his arms, safe and warm and untroubled, and there were no dreams.

  I woke up to thunder. Reflex action: I checked Oversight, and found nothing out of the ordinary out there, then realized that the thunder was knocking, and there were people outside of my hotel room.

  "Jo!" A man's voice, rough and authoritative. "Open the damn door. Right now!"

  I knew the voice. I let my head fall back against the pillow of David's warm skin, and said what he already knew. "Great. The boss is checking up on us. "

  David pulled away from me and I could feel the fury burning through him, see it boiling in his eyes. This could get very unpleasant.

  "Go," I told him. "Let me handle it. "

  His hot eyes scorched me, just for a second, but behind the anger I saw worry for me. I kissed him, fast and hard, and felt him mist away.

  The door slammed open. I yelped and crawled backward, clutching the covers over myself, until my naked back met the cold headboard.

  My boss, Paul Giancarlo, flanked by three other Wardens. One of them was Marion Bearheart, the woman who scared me most in the world; nice lady, frightening powers, and the right and responsibility to use them.

  I flipped up into the aetheric plane to get a quick reading, and saw Paul in his avatar form-his outline had the unmistakable suggestion of a knight in armor, sword in hand. In the real world he looked more like a refugee from The Sopranos, complete to gold chain peeking through dark chest hair, and a stretch golf shirt that didn't make him look like anybody who chased a ball around the back nine for fun. Sexy, and dangerous as hell.

  Marion 's bronzed features were expressionless here in the real word, turned sharper by her gray-and-black hair being pulled back in a thick single braid. She was wearing a black leather jacket with fringe blurring the edges, blue jeans, black cowboy boots. Up on the aetheric, I caught the flare of eagle wings in her aura.

  I didn't know the other two except on a nodding acquaintance. Both were seniors, both from outside the country. One was from Canada, one from Brazil. Their presence in my hotel room was not reassuring.

  Paul gave me his most impersonal look, and that meant something really, really bad. Paul always took time to notice and appreciate the little things, like a naked woman in bed.

  "Get dressed," he said. "Hurry. "

  He turned and left. Marion stayed behind, shutting the door after the others. She crossed her arms and watched me. I watched her right back.

  "A little privacy?" I asked. She cocked her head to one side, eyes bright as a raven's, and smiled a refusal. I threw the covers back and walked naked across the floor to pull open drawers on the dresser. David had left my clothes neatly stacked.

  As I dressed, Marion kept her eyes on the bed I'd just abandoned, and finally she said, "It's wrong, you know. "

  I didn't play dumb. I just asked, "Why?" as I fastened my bra.

  "He's at your mercy. Even if he loves you, Joanne- and I have no doubt he does; I've seen enough to know that-inevitably, it'll turn to something else. A slave doesn't love a master. A slave endures a master. This will twist and sicken. It can't do anything else. " Her voice dropped lower. "You'll lose him. And even if you don't, it makes you terribly, terribly vulnerable. "

  "It's not like that. " Even as I said it, I felt the lie turn in my mouth, sticky and sour. It's what I'd been afraid of in the beginning. Why I hadn't ever wanted to claim him as a Djinn. What was between the two of us was fragile, and I was human and stupid. It was easy to screw it up.