by Rachel Caine
When the phone rang, he answered, and I drifted back to a dark, quiet sleep for the rest of the night.
In the morning, I woke up stronger than I’d felt through the night—though that really wasn’t much of an improvement, since I’d started from a baseline of near death. I found out from David, who was up bright and early fixing coffee and eggs, that the phone call had been from Lewis. The aetheric dust-up had been witnessed by hundreds of Wardens, though nobody could tell what had been going on or who had been the target. Lewis had decided to check in, just in case. A team of Wardens had been put on smoothing out the effects of the fight, which was good, because it was well beyond me. Sitting up for more than an hour was beyond me.
David poured me a cup of coffee and slid into the chair beside me. “How do you feel?” he asked.
“Like I survived. Barely,” I said. “You want the truth? I feel fragile. And glad to be alive.” I sipped without really tasting the nutty brown richness, though the smell of the coffee warmed me. “Why did Ashan make you watch?”
His hands went still on the table. He didn’t look up. “Punishment,” he said. “I didn’t have permission to leave the Mother. She wasn’t pleased. She—she can cut me off from her, and she did it, to prove the point. That’s why I didn’t have the power to stop him.”
He’d disobeyed the Mother for me. I almost dropped the china cup, and it rattled when I managed to get it back to the saucer. “David—”
“If you’re about to tell me that it was stupid, I already know,” he said. “But don’t ask me to promise not to do it again.”
“But—what did she want?”
“Djinn business.” His tone made it clear that it wasn’t any of mine. “You wouldn’t understand even if I tried to explain.”
Because of me, David had already lost his status as the sole conduit for the Djinn; Ashan had taken on responsibility for the Old Djinn. Now, if he wasn’t careful, he’d lose everything. I felt that knowledge stab deep, and lodge like a dagger of ice somewhere near my heart. “I don’t think I’m worth it,” I said slowly.
He raised his head, and the look in his eyes broke me. “I think you are,” he said. “I think you’re worth far more. You’ve proven it to me so many times.”
I had to take a deep breath, or I’d have burst into tears. As it was, my voice trembled. “David—Ashan told me the risks. If we exchange vows, it could bind the New Djinn the way that Jonathan’s vow bound the Djinn in the first place. I could be responsible for enslaving you again. All of you.” I swallowed hard. “I can’t take that chance.”
“No?” He smiled, but it was a bitter, dark thing, and it made me shiver. “I can.”
“David—”
“I warned you. When Djinn fall in love, there’s no middle ground. Our love is deep, and total, and merciless. ” He regarded me for a long moment, and his hand closed around mine, far gentler than the look in his eyes. “You think I did this without considering the consequences? Without considering the cost to my own people, and my responsibilities?”
“I—” I finally shook my head. “I don’t know. I don’t know how it is for Djinn, but where love is involved, humans aren’t usually that strong on logic.”
That made his smile warmer, more genuine. “True enough for us as well. However, I believe that the New Djinn need to stay close to humanity, and I believe this is an important step to ensure that happens. You see? Logical. It also happens to be what I want to do. It’s a risk, yes, but it’s a risk I think is acceptable. In addition, it’s a way to force the Sentinels out in the open, by forcing them to counter our move.” He lifted my fingers to his mouth and kissed them, just a light brush of lips. “If you decide we can’t go through with it, I’ll abide by your decision.”
“But . . . what about the others?”
“The other New Djinn? I won’t say there aren’t a few who are doubtful, but by and large, they’re interested. Intrigued. It’s possible that if we exchange vows, the Djinn could regain some measure of the additional power they had under the old agreement with the Wardens—but still retain their autonomy. As I said, we all consider it worth a try.”
“Especially since it’s temporary,” I said. “Right? Till death do us part. Once I’m gone, the vow is broken.”
Sadness softened the metallic glitter of his eyes. “Yes,” he said. “Exactly. Unlike the agreement Jonathan made, which was to a group, this is to an individual. But the Old Djinn still don’t want to take the risk. They’re the more conservative force, and they worry about consequences. About precedence.”
He was describing a lot more to me about Djinn politics than he ever had before, and I had to admit, I was intrigued. “The Mother said to let me fight my own battles, didn’t she? That was why she summoned you both in, you and Ashan. To lay down the law.”
“Yes.”
“Which you promptly broke by racing to my side.”
“Ashan broke it first,” David pointed out. “He came to kill you, and I have no doubt he’d have done it. He didn’t see you as worthy, not in any way, of what I’m offering.”
“Flattering.”
David shrugged. “Ashan’s not known for being overly fond of mortals, but if he was going to be impressed by any human, it would probably be you.”
“Why? Because I didn’t whimper and die?” I shoved eggs around on my plate. I needed food, but everything seemed distant, lacking any kind of attraction or urgency.
“Because he saw what I saw. He saw your strength, your power, your beauty.” David paused, studying me with an expression so tender that it melted my heart and gave me shivers. “He saw what I saw in your core, and it shook him. It shook all of them. You have a peculiar gift to make Djinn feel. In a way, that makes you more dangerous than anyone they’ve ever known.”
“But less easy to kill, I hope.”
He tilted his head. No answer. I chewed eggs. They were good, I supposed. More importantly, they were fuel for a body that had spent its reserves recklessly. My body fat was gone, and my blood sugar in the negative numbers. David’s infusion of energy last night had kept me alive when my mortal flesh tried to shut down, but now it was up to me to get things back in order.
“The Sentinels,” he said. “Did you get anything from them? Anything that could help us?”
I dropped my fork and stared at him. “I didn’t tell you?”
“Tell me what?”
“Oh my God!” Of course I hadn’t. I’d been busy trying not to die, and then I’d been completely consumed by the novelty of still being alive. Until he’d asked the question, the knowledge had been lurking somewhere in the back of my mind, waiting for the right moment. “I know where he is! The—the anchor, the leader, whatever! Well, where he was, anyway.”
“Where?” David was already up and on his feet, and looking more Djinn than he ought to. “Where?”
I picked up my fork and gobbled down mouthfuls of egg as fast as I could, grimly intent on getting my strength back. “The Florida Keys,” I said. “Key West, or somewhere close to it. The bastard is our neighbor.”
Chapter Nine
I rested for a couple of days. My appetite returned with a vengeance on the second day out from the attack, and David was at first amused, then a little appalled at my lust for calories. “Are you sure that’s wise?” he asked when I opened up the fourth bag of barbecue chips. “There’s such a thing as overdoing it. . . .”
I knew there was, but the food and the sleep were recharging my body, and I wanted to hasten the process. Impatient, that was me. And scared. I knew the Sentinels now, in aetheric form if not in actual physical shape. I knew how much power they were packing, and it was terrifying indeed. I wanted my body back and balanced, fast.
I knew that bags of chips weren’t the way to go, but they tasted so good.
David distracted me from the chips by proposing an outing: shopping. “You,” I said, gazing at him approvingly, “are getting to know me way too well.”
He raised his ey
ebrows. “I plan to research you in the biblical sense later.”
“Mmmmm, maybe shopping can wait.” Those words were a sign of just how much that invitation really meant. I hardly ever delayed shopping.
“No. I want us out and visible,” he said. “If the Sentinels are watching, I want them to see that you’re alive, well, and strong. I don’t think they’ll try that again. You surprised them, and you scared them.”
“I did?”
“If you hadn’t,” David said, “they’d have come back for you already.”
Dressing took on a whole girding-for-battle significance now that I knew my enemies were going to be watching me. I bathed, scrubbed, exfoliated, shampooed, shaved, tweezed, moisturized. I spent half an hour on my hair, and another half an hour on makeup. Choosing the right sundress required another long stretch of time. When I finally appeared in the doorway, David was stretched out on the couch, feet crossed at the ankles, reading a battered paperback, which he dropped on his chest at the sight of me.
“Yeah?” I twirled for him, just fast enough that the floating hem of the light floral sundress showed my thighs. “Healthy enough?”
He pressed his lips together and struggled to sit up. “That’s one word for it.”
“What’s another?”
“Seductive.” That note in his voice made me shiver, but I put my shoulders back and shook my finger at him anyway.
“You said we needed to get out. So out we get, Mister.”
He sighed, stood up, and slipped into his coat.
“David?” I hated to say it, because this was a kind of dividing line, and I wasn’t even sure why. “The coat. If you want to be taken for human, only flashers wear coats in Fort Lauderdale in the summer.”
He seemed honestly surprised. “But—ah. Yes. Right.” He took it off and put it back on the chair, petting its olive-drab surface as he did, like a favorite pet he was sorry to leave behind. “Everything else okay?”
I gave him the walkaround. “Not bad,” I said, “but we can do better.”
“Oh no,” he said.
“That’s right. We’re shopping for you, buster.”
I knew all the good places to shop, but if I hadn’t, even JCPenney would have been able to supply a decent alternative to the ever-present checked shirt that David seemed to think was the height of fashion. But I wasn’t going for better; I was going for make women stop and stare, though with David, that wasn’t exactly difficult.
He was made for Versace.
The salespeople thought so too; David was bemused by the whole affair, clearly wondering what the hell he’d gotten himself into, but as always, he was willing to experiment with the most trivial of human pursuits. I conspired with the lead saleswoman to do before and after digital pictures. Going in, David was a good-looking man, a bit conservative with his blue-and-white checked shirt and jeans.
Going out, he was so attractive that he was a menace to passing traffic. He wore a black, skin-tight Versace knit shirt, long-sleeved to give him sleekness, and his black Diesel jeans that hugged his ass and thighs, and flared out at the ends just enough. Because we were in Florida, I gave him a bit of a surfer fashion sensibility, and it suited him brilliantly. The coppery tan could have been stoked by days paddling in the surf. I added a very fine Hugo Boss sports coat, in midnight blue, and when he put it on, the salespeople gave a collective sigh and snapped pictures. He turned toward me, eyebrows raised, a slight flush in his cheeks.
I’ve made a Djinn blush, I thought. There was a weird satisfaction in that. Also, I planned to try to make him blush more, in private, later.
Some part of me, during all this public playacting, kept monitoring the aetheric for any signs of Sentinel activity. Nothing. It was dead quiet, weirdly so. Maybe I really had given them a shock with not dying on cue.
I started to pay for the clothes, but David slipped a wallet from his pocket and pulled out a jet-black American Express card. I caught a look at the name as he handed it over.
DAVID CYRUS PRINCE.
David knew what I was thinking, and he met my eyes briefly, then smiled at the salesclerk and signed the credit card receipt. We left the store with his old clothes and shoes in a bag. I couldn’t stop stealing glances at him, darkly gorgeous as he was; every woman we passed, young or old, plain or model-in-training, gave him an involuntary stare.
“That,” he said, “was a waste of time. I could have just manifested the clothes, if you’d shown me what you wanted me to wear.”
“The point is to be seen,” I reminded him. “Besides, buying clothes is something humans do. You want to be human, right?”
“Right.” His lips quirked, and he tried to suppress a smile. “That’s the first time I’ve ever purchased clothing, you know. For myself.”
“It’s good to stretch,” I assured him. “Mr. Prince.”
The two of us strolled through the warm, humid morning. My dress rippled and flowed in the ocean breezes, my hair looked fantastic, my shoes were kicking ass, and I had the most beautiful man I’d ever seen on my arm.
Still, I was constantly looking for a knife headed for my back. Our backs.
Nothing.
We shopped all morning, then ate lunch in a café next to the ocean. I could see that David was settling into his new look, which pleased me; I had the feeling that Djinn changed styles reluctantly. He couldn’t help but notice the attention he was attracting, and unless Djinn were a whole lot less like humans than I suspected, attention wasn’t unwelcome.
Otherwise, he wouldn’t choose to be so gorgeous to start with.
Over chicken salad and iced teas, he asked me about our afternoon plans. I proposed more shopping. He counterproposed other things, which I confess sounded more interesting, but I’d pledged to keep to my timeline.
I really needed to find that wedding dress.
So after lunch, we went to Zola Keller, and I started the arduous task of trying on thousand-dollar-and-up couture. Which is not nearly as much of a hardship as you might think. I went through twelve styles, none of them quite right, and then . . .
And then it happened.
The moment the clerk unzipped the bag, I just knew. As the weight of the Italian silk settled around me, I knew even more. When she laced the back and prepped me for the mirror, I knew I’d found exactly what would drive David wild.
Unlike most wedding gowns, this was no Disney princess knockoff; it was sophisticated, subtle, sexy. Layers of silk dropped in subtle angles from the low-cut bodice, but it in no way resembled any kind of wedding cake. The fabric rippled in silk waves, layer upon layer, sweeping into a fantastic train.
But the back was what did it—a laced corset, fitted to show a deep, sexy V of skin down the spine beneath the lacings. It was demure enough, but I could sense, like a vibration on the aetheric, that it would drive him absolutely mad.
“I’ll take it,” I said. The clerk raised both eyebrows.
“Don’t you want to know—”
“If you tell me the price, I’ll chicken out, so no. I don’t want to know. Just ring it up.”
She cleared her throat. “I really think I should warn you about the cost—”
“You really shouldn’t,” I sighed.
The Warden AmEx was about to get a serious workout. Even though she was undoubtedly making a commission, my saleslady looked concerned for the state of my financial future. As well she should. If it cost anywhere near what it looked, I was going to be paying approximately the cost of a new car.
She fussed around with the dress, looking for necessary alterations and marking them. A thorough professional. We discussed indoor versus outdoor, potential hazards of having a court train to manage, and other things that I couldn’t imagine ever discussing again in my entire life.
But it was done. I had a dress. And it was the dress.
I walked out of the dressing room feeling happier than I had in weeks, trailing the salesclerk like a lady’s maid. I was smiling widely, anticipating the plea
sant shock of seeing David in his still-new finery, and I wasn’t disappointed; he was sitting sprawled on a velvet couch, looking ready for a fashion shoot. Women were finding reasons to shop in his vicinity. I couldn’t really blame them.
“Done,” I said serenely.
“Really? That was fast.” It wasn’t, but he was being kind. He kissed me, and that was very nice, especially when, as he pulled back, he whispered in my ear, “I want to take you home now.”
“Let me mortgage my future first.”
I don’t think a sale ever went through faster. In fact, I didn’t even notice the total amount as I signed the slip.
And then, of course, everything went wrong.
David sensed it first, by a couple of seconds; he looked up sharply, all the ease and humor draining away from him, and his hand closed around mine in an iron grip. He wasn’t letting us be separated again, not this time.
“What is it?” I asked, or tried to. I never got to the last word. David pointed to the world beyond the glass windows.
The clouds were thickening so fast overhead that it looked like special effects from the most expensive disaster movie ever made.
I turned my focus out to sea, out to that calm and tranquil sea. There were no hurricanes brewing there, only the normal cycle of thunderstorms that needed no Warden regulation.
But someone was tampering with the clouds, forcing energy into a stable system—taking a standard garden-variety thunderstorm, which hadn’t even really been threatening rain until later, and packing it with energy until it was a mesocyclone. I’d seen it done, but never this fast, never with so little to work with. The Sentinels were creating an emergency, and doing it so quickly that it made my whole body shiver with the corona effect of the power. Lightning ripped through the sky, blue-white and purple, and struck three times that I could see, blowing up transformers, destroying a metal light pole, stabbing into the lightning at-tractors on a building only two blocks away.
