by Rachel Caine
Which I didn’t think would do a damn bit of good, because if this stuff had seeped down this far, it had probably contaminated the higher levels, too. Unless he meant Aruba, which was probably not glitter-free either, but still very nice this time of year.
“I’ll tell the Wardens,” Lewis said. “But I’d like to do it in person. Jo—?”
“Who are you calling?” I asked Patrick, since Lewis hadn’t phrased it in the form of an order and was probably too polite to do it for at least another five minutes. Patrick finished dialing a number that was too long to be to any country on Earth. He didn’t speak, just hung up the phone. I understood instinctively what he’d been doing—not dialing a phone, in any real way, but using the metaphorical human device to send a message through the aetheric, a kind of sympathetic magic. I even knew who he was calling. “Oh, God, you’re calling Jonathan.”
“Who won’t show his face,” Patrick said, with a bitter-lemon twist of his lips that made me wonder just how comfortable that relationship was. “He doesn’t leave his house.”
“Why?”
“Because it doesn’t exist on any of the planes. It’s a kind of…” Patrick paused for thought. “Bubble, I suppose you’d say. It’s for all of our protection. If Jonathan was ever claimed, the consequences… Let’s say they wouldn’t be good. Not good at all.”
So maybe Jonathan’s plush little refuge wasn’t by his choice. Which made me wonder just who really was in charge, among my new friends and family. Politics. Still hate ‘em. Djinn politics just made my head hurt worse than human ones.
Ten seconds or less later, I felt a kind of shift in the room, like some balance of energy had tipped. It was subtle, but it made me wonder…
… and then Rahel walked out of the master bedroom, examining her talons with a critical, casual grace. She looked up, acknowledged Patrick with a fast, white glint of teeth in her dark-skinned face, and then slowly took stock of the room.
“Love the makeover,” she said. “Since I doubt you grew any taste since last I saw you, I imagine Sistah Snow was behind it. Yes?”
Her smile faded fast when we started talking. A quick trip to the aetheric to show her the contamination, and back down to reality to see Rahel’s completely unnerving frown. Her eyes were glowing, hot and gold, and she just looked, well, strong. Strong enough to dissolve me into a sticky pool on the carpet just with the force of that stare.
“I’m sorry,” I said. It was totally inadequate.
She didn’t blink. “Not your fault,” she said, which was not at all what I expected to hear. “This is something I have never seen, either. I would have done the same, if I had been given the same order. With perhaps exactly the same result.”
“So what do we do?” Lewis asked.
A short, pregnant silence. Her stare didn’t seem quite so menacing, but it was still as intense as a laser.
“I think,” she said slowly, and transferred the gaze to Lewis, “that perhaps I should consult with Jonathan and find a way to make this right. You stay here. The fewer who travel the aetheric, the better, until we know what the consequences might be.”
“I’ll go,” I said.
Rahel looked at me sharply, and unpleasant recognition dawned in cat-bright eyes. “Ah,” she said. “I did not see it at first, because it changed you very little. But still you’re claimed, aren’t you? And chained.”
“It’s not so bad,” I said. “All the buildup, I was expecting something a lot worse.”
“A good master makes a good servant.” She leaned on the word servant with a heavy weight of disdain. “I don’t think this is at all wise. Lewis, you should know better.”
“I wouldn’t have claimed her if you’d given me a choice.”
Ouch, the look that swept between them was like two master fencers, lunge and parry and riposte faster than thought. Lewis certainly felt comfortable around Djinn. I wondered when familiarity had happened to breed that particular contempt.
“I am not your slave,” Rahel said.
“Apparently, you don’t believe in working for a living, either.”
“Sssst!” It was less a sound than a burst of electricity from her, snapping like a whip. It didn’t touch Lewis. I don’t think he even flinched. “Djinn did not make this portal, did not create this pollution you speak of. Humans meddled in things they didn’t understand, and this is the result. Chaos.”
“Djinn being perfect.”
“More perfect than…”
“Excuse me,” I said loudly, “can we please focus on the problem? Because I for one don’t really feel this is getting us anywhere.”
Rahel looked murderous. Junior half-Djinn were not supposed to get uppity, apparently.
“Where’s David?” I asked.
She favored me with something that looked dangerously close to a sneer.
“Running to your savior?” she asked, sweet as a batch of overcooked fudge. “Jonathan has a use for him. You’re to learn to fly for yourself, little bird.”
“Fine. Then let’s go see Jonathan,” I said.
She stopped me with an outstretched hand. Did the fingernails look longer and sharper? Yeah. Definitely. “Slaves do not go there.”
“Excuse me?”
She flicked her eyes toward Lewis. “Nor do humans. I will go. Not you.”
“She’s not a slave,” Lewis said, and stepped into Rahel’s space. He was taller, broader, but I couldn’t be sure he was stronger. In fact, the chances of him even holding his own against her were thin. “She’s an ally. I don’t suppose you get the concept.”
“An ally who accepts any order you choose to issue, no matter how degrading? Who has no choice but to comply?” Rahel swept me with a hard look. “Do not fool yourself, little Snow. A slave with a kind master is still a slave.” The look ripped Lewis, too. “And a slave’s master has no honor.”
“Maybe I’m crazy, but I have the strong feeling that if we don’t get this straightened out, it may not matter whether I’m free or not. Everybody gets the same crappy deal.”
“Likely you’re correct.” She quirked her head to the side, an alien-looking catlike movement that made me jump a little. “And yet I will not take you.”
Fine. I plopped down on the comfortable brown leather sofa and put my work-booted feet up on the coffee table. “I’ll just sit and watch the world get eaten, then. Hey, be sure to call me if the apocalypse comes. I need to get some 400-speed film, make sure I get good pictures.”
She gave me a snarl, and vanished. Whoosh. There was a breeze—displacement of air—and I transferred my stare to Patrick. He looked blank and angelic. Put a red suit on him, and he could be handing out candy in a mall and asking kids what they wanted Santa to bring them.
“You’re not going?” I asked.
He cleared his throat. “Let’s say that I’m not welcome in those particular circles.”
“Because of the way you were made Djinn?”
“Among other things.” He shrugged. “I’ve learned to live with disappointment.” He stretched out his arms and manifested a light camel-colored coat, something appropriate for a spring day. “I have not, however, learned to live with this… redecorating. I believe I’ll go for a walk. Call me if the world ends, there’s a dear.”
He blipped out. I stared at the spot where he’d been, frowning and wishing I still lived in a world where people used doors.
Lewis ambled around and settled down next to me.
“So,” he said.
“So,” I agreed. “Son of a bitch.”
“Who, me?”
“The situation.”
“Ah.” He rubbed his hands lightly together. “Guess I’d better get back to work. I’ve got the pressure mostly relieved in the plates around the San Andreas, but I need to get a team of Earth Wardens on it. And the Fire Wardens need the tip-off about the Yellowstone fire, too.”
He glanced over at me, eyebrows up.
“What?” I asked.
“That was a
codependent way of asking you to do it for me.”
“You want me to run your errands? Bite me, Lewis.” After Rahel’s rather rabble-rousing speeches about slavery, I wasn’t feeling any too subservient. “How’d the rip form in the first place?”
“I don’t know,” Lewis said. “Like Rahel said, this is new. I’ve never heard of this stuff coming through before. It’s almost always a demon, reaching through to put the Mark on a human; once the Mark matures, they can make the crossing to the human plane directly, without going through the aetheric levels. Safer for them. But this stuff…”
“Maybe it can be destroyed.”
“We don’t even know what it does.”
“Yeah, but even so I think we’d better work from Patrick’s theory: Nothing good ever comes out of the Void…”
I stopped, hesitated. There was something…
“Jo?” He was staring at me, wide-eyed. I wondered how bright my eyes had just flared.
“Stay here,” I said, and got up to take a look around.
The first thing I spotted after passing into the kitchen was the almost-there shadow of Patrick’s Ifrit, hiding in the gloom behind. Watching me. That predatory interest made hair stand up on my neck.
“Hey,” I said to it, and took a step closer. She shrank farther into shadow—not aggressive today, certainly not the ripping, shrieking fiend that Patrick had set on me just yesterday in training sessions. “Don’t be afraid. I’m not going to hurt you.”
“It’s not you I’m afraid of,” it said. “Don’t blame him for this. He doesn’t understand.”
“Understand what?”
“It will kill all of you.”
For some reason, I didn’t have any doubt about what it was. “You can see it? This light? You know, the glitter?” She nodded, or at least I thought she did. “Do you know what it is?”
“Yes.” A bare, sighing breath. I felt myself tense up. “Knowing will not help you.”
“Why?”
“It does not help me.”
Great, Ifrit were just as evasive as Djinn when it came to the important stuff. “Look, just tell me, if you know. What is this stuff? How do we stop it?”
“It is life,” she whispered. “It is love. It is death.”
Point taken—Ifrit were more evasive. “How about in more, you know, technical terms…?”
She seemed to be trying to tell me, struggling to describe something that she didn’t have a language to cover. “It has happened before.”
“But Rahel said…”
“She was not told.”
“Sara…”
“Do not say my name!” It was a cry of mortal pain. “You don’t understand. Love consumes. Love must consume.”
I heard Lewis say something from the other room, his voice rising into a question.
“Lewis?” I called.
The Ifrit said, “He is a man. Men are weak. They don’t always see…” Was she talking about Lewis? Patrick? I had no idea, but she wasn’t making any sense that existed in my reality. Ifrits were crazy, I knew that much already. “You must choose. I could not.”
“Okay,” I said, and held up my hands in surrender. “I’ll choose. No problem. Ah… Lewis?”
I backed away—not quite confident enough to give her my undefended back—and came out into the living room again.
Patrick was back, and he’d brought friends. Two of them, to be precise. He was in the process of taking his coat off and hanging it on a tacky-looking gold rack—had I put that there? Ack! — while the other two looked around, evidently checking out my interior decorating skills. I didn’t know the kid— sixteen, seventeen at most—who stood looking pale and mutinous and typically disaffected; he pushed hands into his pants pockets and slumped in a don’t-notice-me attitude. He needed a haircut, but that was probably just the generation gap talking.
The woman had her back to me, but those curves looked familiar.
“Patrick?” I asked. His too-blue eyes flashed to me, and then away. He looked uncomfortably guilty. “What’s up?”
Lewis was up off the couch, now, too, clearly wary. He didn’t like drop-in visitors any more than I did, especially not right now, when things were so… weird.
“I’m sorry,” Patrick said. “You see, I had a preexisting commitment.”
“Sorry…?”
“A business partner,” he said, and indicated the woman, who was still studying the Mondrian with her back to me. “We have something of a barter arrangement. I owe her something.”
She turned, finally, and it took me a few seconds before the memory ball dropped. Yvette Prentiss, from my funeral. She was out of uniform—no lace dress—but the skintight jeans with lace insets on the sides and the tight lace shirt, no bra in evidence, made a definite fashion statement. The statement said, Hi, I’m a total slut, climb aboard and ride me like a rented pony. Bear in mind, this is coming from a girl with a finely honed appreciation for trashy outfits. I once spent two hundred bucks on a pair of thigh-high patent leather boots, just to say I owned them. But there are limits.
Her eyes widened, and kept on widening. On her, that looked sexy. Her pouty, collagen-enhanced lips parted. “Oh,” she whispered, low in her throat. “I know you.”
“Yvette?” Lewis had stepped into the conversational gap. He took a couple of steps closer, and extended his hand. “We met at the—”
“Memorial service,” she supplied, looking past him at me. “For her.”
Lewis turned and looked, too, as if he’d forgotten all about that. “Well… yes. She’s—”
“—Djinn.” How sweet, they were finishing each other’s sentences. Lewis still had hold of her hand. I didn’t care for that at all, but I could see from the warm, oh-so-sexy smile she favored him with that she liked it just fine. “Thank you, Patrick. But you know she’s not exactly what I was looking for.”
Patrick cleared his throat uncomfortably. “Yes. Well, another small problem… she’s already been claimed.”
Yvette’s smile died a fast, ugly death. Her prettiness had a hard edge to it, I found, like a razor blade under velvet. “This isn’t what we agreed.”
“I know.” He helplessly indicated Lewis. “There were… considerations.”
Her green eyes locked onto Lewis’s face and held there. The smile came back, but I didn’t trust it. I couldn’t tell from Lewis’s bemused expression if he was even paying attention to anything but the generously revealed swell of her chest.
“Of course,” she said. “Well, I’m flattered to meet you again… sorry, I didn’t catch your name…?”
“Call me Lewis,” he said. She was pretty much the last person I’d pick to know who he was, but I could tell he didn’t feel the same way. “You were looking for a Djinn?”
“Well, yes.” She looked sad-clown distressed, but not enough that it made her look less than stunningly attractive. “I’m afraid mine—well, a friend of mine needed his services. I’m currently without support. I was hoping to persuade your friend to work for me. Temporarily. It’s important.”
Lot of that going around. I folded my arms and tried to look threatening. Neither of them paid the least bit of attention. Patrick wouldn’t meet my gaze, either. The kid was roaming the room, checking out the stuff. He looked back over at Yvette, who nodded slightly, and went back to messing with movables, picking them up and putting them down. Checking for price tags? Jeez.
“I’m afraid she’s booked up,” he said. “But maybe there’s something I can do for you.”
Her eyes raked him up and down. Blatantly. “I’m sure that’s perfectly true.” She giggled.
He laughed. I hadn’t heard Lewis laugh in—well, I don’t think I’d ever heard him laugh. Not a yuk-it-up kind of guy, generally. His humor was quiet, his sexuality—well, until now, I would have thought it was kind of subdued.
“Nothing I can do to change your mind?” she asked, and looked up at him from under thick lashes. Moved closer. “You look like you’d drive a ha
rd… bargain.”
I rolled my eyes, thought about picking up the phone. Hello, Central Casting? Are you missing your Seducto-Bitch stereotype? Surely he could see it was an act.
“I’ve been known to… bargain,” he said, and smiled at her. Was that a leer? Was he actually flirting with Miss Artificial Intelligence of 2003? “Maybe later we could—”
She arched against him like he was a pole and she was the stripper. “How about a little negotiating session now?”
This time, I did find my voice. “Ah, excuse me?”
She put her hands in his pockets, pulling him groin to groin for a vertical lapdance. He was trying to step away, but not really putting any effort into it. More of the token I’m-a-nice-guy-but-I-can-be-persuaded sort of resistance. I knew, because I’d done the female version of it often enough. And hey, once with Lewis.
David hadn’t liked her. Not at all. And I was more than willing to go with David’s instincts, especially when mine were screaming bloody murder.
“Not now,” Lewis said absently to me. Which was not quite an order, but had the definite aroma of one. And I didn’t like that at all.
“Hey!” This time I put some lung power into it. “Lewis! Use the big brain. What the hell does she want? And if you think that for one minute I’m going to work for this cut-rate road show temptress…”
Her hand came out of Lewis’s pocket.
She was holding the small perfume vial in her hand, and a small plastic stopper. My bottle. I felt a lurch, as if gravity was shifting, and felt a sickening sense of despair close over me. Oh God…
Lewis pulled free and shoved her back. His eyes went wide. He reached out for the perfume bottle, grabbed hold of her wrist…
… and the kid, who’d been examining a heavy glass bowl, lunged forward and hit him in the head with it. Lewis staggered and went to his hands and knees. The kid—tall, gawky, pale, his knuckles white around the edges of the leaded glass—raised it for another blow.
“Stop!” I yelled, and reached out to give him the most powerful whammy that I still had at my command.
