Chill Factor

Page 31

I took out the bottle and gave it to him. No sensation one way or another; I hadn't felt any click of connection with Rahel, and I didn't feel any loss of it now. But Lewis did, clearly; I saw him suck in a breath and sit up straighter, and for just a second his dulled eyes took on a ferocious gleam.
"She fed off of Jonathan?" he asked.
"Not really sure how much of it was Jonathan and how much was David, but she took a lot." I felt my stomach do that slow drop and roll again. "David- he's bad. I don't know if he's-"
"He's not dead," Lewis said. The way he said it, almost dismissively, made me give him a sharp look and want to follow it up with a sharp right hook, except it wouldn't have exactly been a fair fight. In a tussle between Lewis and a plastic grocery sack, I'd give two to one on the bag.
He opened his fist, and I realized that Siobhan's blood had transferred from my hand to his; it was smeared in dull red clouds over the bottle. I squinted, because it looked as if those dull red clouds were moving. Swirling over the surface of the glass.
Being absorbed.
I felt a fast, hot surge of nausea. What's the matter, Rahel, eating Djinn wasn't enough for you? Now you're snacking on human blood, too?
"What the hell are you doing?" I snapped at him, and pulled myself back upright to step away, glaring. He considered the bottle balanced on the palm of his hand for a few seconds, then looked up at me with an unreadable expression.
"I don't think I have to do anything. Mazel tov," he said, and dropped the bottle to the carpet. Then he levered himself out of the wheelchair, lifted his foot, and stomped on the glass hard enough to shatter it.
Something pulsed through the room in a silent explosion. It was a ruffle of wind in the real world, a white wave of pure energy in the aetheric; I felt it tug hard inside me as it passed, and the Djinn-child inside of me vibrated like a tuning fork. I instinctively took another step back and covered my stomach with both hands, but the kick I felt wasn't pain; it was something like delight.
A flash of hot gold from the corner of my eye, and then a shadow, moving... shadow taking form, function, grace. Walking with a loose-limbed stride as she formed herself out of the air, out of legend and memory and power.
Rahel's hair was short now, the cornrows reduced to an elegant half-inch crop around the perfect noble sculpture of her head. It set off the line of her cheekbones, the full, lush curve of her lips.
Her eyes blazed hot, hot, hot amber.
She was wearing black, which I'd never seen her do. Black silk shirt flowing over her lean, muscular body, showing off just enough curves to make her feminine. Kind of a retro look for her, very seventies. Hip-hugging black pants, wide belt, no-nonsense kick-ass boots.
"Snow White," she said, and the smile looked real. Not exactly comforting, but certainly real. She gave me a slight, significant bow, then turned her attention to Lewis as he sank back down in his wheelchair. It was sort of a controlled fall. "You seem unwell, my friend."
"Yeah," Lewis croaked. "Had better days."
Rahel reached down and put her hands on either side of his face. Quite a contrast; her skin was a deep blue-black, unsettlingly reminiscent of the hard, glistening shade she'd worn as an Ifrit, and instead of an Ifrit's diamond-sharp claws she had fingernails again, painted a rich, hot gold.
"So I see," she murmured, staring into his eyes. I couldn't have held that stare, not for any price. Lewis blinked, but managed not to flinch too much. "I have suffered, Lewis. Like you. I understand what it is to lose yourself, to know hunger and pain and rage. I understand what it is to face an eternity of it, without relief."
"I'm still human," he said. "Eternity's a little shorter for me."
"So you think?" She shook her head a little. "Eternity is the same for all things."
"Why are you back here?" I whispered. "How did you-"
Rahel's attention turned my way, but her eyes didn't. She made her reply directly to Lewis. "Because there was death."
"Human death," I said, and then I shut up fast, because I remembered just how Jonathan had become a Djinn in the first place, along with David... on a battlefield, surrounded by human death. Then the death spreading, spiraling, fueling a transformation... "Death gives life. That's what Jonathan told me." It meant that there might be another way for Imara... no. I couldn't think about it now. Not now.
"The power is very strong," she said. "Though if I had not drawn so much from such powerful sources, I could not have managed it. Human death tipped the scales; it did not balance them."
She leaned very close to Lewis, so close she was inches from kissing him with those lush, glistening lips. "I can give you what you need."
His smile jerked into something oddly humorous. "You're an exhibitionist now?" His voice had fallen into a silky lower range, resonating in his chest. I knew that tone. It had dropped my knickers on the floor in a lab back in college.
"Tell me you want it." Rahel's voice had gone into the dark, too, ripe and sexy and barely more than a whisper. "Tell me what you will give me for it, my love."
"Undying gratitude?"
"You'll have to do better than that." Her lips just grazed his, and I saw his skin flush redder.
The whole room-the twenty-odd members of Ma'at who had trooped in with us, the silent waitstaff, Marion, Kevin, the muscle-bound security men-we all stood, spellbound, watching this. I don't know about anybody else, but I was starting to expect clothes to come off, which would have had the virtue of being completely, wildly inappropriate, and would scandalize the socks off of the Ma'at.
And then Rahel smiled wider. "Tell me what you'll give me."
"Freedom," Lewis said, and kissed her. Big-time. A hungry, openmouthed kiss. I heard the shocked gasp go through the room. Butler dude-Blevins?-looked so disapproving that I felt like I'd wandered onto the set of a Merchant Ivory film.
Rahel pulled away, standing straight. Lewis's pulse was beating fast; I could see it pounding in his neck. Rahel looked perfectly composed.
"You already gave me that," she said. "I require your love."
I finally saw Lewis look completely idiotic. Yep. That was an utterly blank look, blank as a codfish. "What?"
"Love," she said distinctly. "Devotion. Shall you give it? Or shall I go now and leave you to deal with this as you please?"
He licked his lips. Probably still tasting her there. Myron Lazlo's shock finally wore off enough for him to step forward and say sternly, "This is neither the time nor the place to-"
"Silence!" she hissed, and snapped an open hand his direction, gold talons suddenly looking a lot less like a fashionable manicure and more like something you'd use to gut fish. "I do not speak to you, man. It was not a general invitation."
Lazlo wisely decided to back off. In fact, everyone backed off a couple of respectful, precautionary steps. It was just Lewis, his wheelchair, and the Djinn.
She looked good in black. Strong, lethal, sexy as hell. I wondered if it was something she'd picked up from Jonathan or David, in that free-for-all fight for survival.
"Tell me you want to live," she said to him.
"I want to live," Lewis said, and his eyes flicked from her to Kevin, behind me. I heard the kid's feet shuffle on the carpet. He was scared. The sight of Rahel had clearly given him a bad turn, and now he was starting to really feel claustrophobic. "He doesn't die, Rahel. That's my condition."
"Lewis, I don't know what kind of game she's playing with you, but she can't fix this," I said. "I asked David. He said no Djinn had the power to reverse what Jonathan had done without killing them both... except Jonathan." It had been a constant topic of conversation for close to a week as we drove around Las Vegas, trying to figure a way to solve the problem. David had been definite about it.
"True," Rahel purred. She turned to face me. Rahel had always had a certain feline quality, something as natural to her as breathing to me, and I felt the force of that again. A cat playing with her food, watching it run and squeak and hide. Djinn were scary people, when they had no reason to regard us with affection. "I can't. But, you see, little flower, I'm not really me anymore. I am more than I was. Less than I will be. And I never said I would do it alone."
It happened so subtly that I almost missed it-did miss it, at first. It was only when an empty space behind her filled that I realized she meant it literally.
She really wasn't alone. Not in the least. The gray-haired, gray-eyed man behind her, with the pale, perfect skin... I remembered him, not fondly. Ashan. Jonathan's second-in-command, with David stuck in a bottle. Chilly bastard, full of power that boiled off of him in the aetheric like heat waves.
More of them, silently appearing in the room, mixed in and around us. A girl with raven-wing hair and elaborate eye shadow, dressed in crimson. Eyes like neon signs in a peculiar shade of magenta. A little girl named Alice in a blue-and-white pinafore. A skeletally thin, tall creature so androgynous that I couldn't decide what he/she was, except a fashion fatality.
Djinn. Lots of Djinn. Free Djinn.
I focused on little Alice, who favored me with a shy smile. "Hey, kid," I said. "Aren't you supposed to be somewhere?"
"Cathy isn't one of the Wardens anymore," she said. "She had enough. I'm free now." Alice's blond head inclined toward Lazlo. "She's with them now. Me too."
The room wasn't big enough to hold all this power, all this humming, vibrating potential. I heard glass rattling in a steady, musical jitter. Too many of them, too close together; I could feel the place heating up.
Lazlo could feel it, too. He said, "Enough. Your point is made, Rahel; there are a lot of you, and I know that you can help or hurt us, as you like. We trust you to make the right decisions, as you trust us. That's the principle of Ma'at. Balance."
"Balance," she agreed. "The Free Djinn have no quarrel with you. But we will not allow one of yours to go unpunished. Or ours to go unrescued."
Whatever second wind Lewis had gasped in was fading fast; his skin had taken on that ivory cast again, white around his mouth and eyes, and I could tell he was in pain. Maybe it was the presence of the Djinn. Maybe it was more than that, his body degrading and folding in on itself as it raided its own tissues in a search for power. He was burning himself from the inside out.
Rahel slowly crouched in front of his wheelchair and laid her golden-tipped fingers on his knees.
"Ashan," she said. "Grant me your strength."
He moved to place a hand on her shoulder. Mr. Clean silently came to take Ashan's hand. The black-haired girl in red parted the humans in her way and laid fingertips on the back of Rahel's close-cropped head.
They came, one by one, moving like ghosts. Those that brushed past me made me feel sparks and chills from the contact. Each touching Rahel, or each other. Forming a network of power, in a very specific configuration.
Lazlo realized it first. He grabbed my elbow, hustled me over to Kevin, and said, "Take his hand."
"What? No!" Kevin yanked free. His eyes were huge and panicked. "You're not fucking with me, man! You'll kill me!"
"Kevin, shut up and do it." When I reached for his hand, he gave it to me in the form of a punch. It landed solidly in my solar plexus. I felt breath evacuate as if I'd been vacuum-sealed, and croaked for air as I doubled over.
But I grabbed his fist and held it in both hands, tightly. Death grip. Lazlo, bless him, held on to the kid's other arm. Once gravity and leverage were on our side, I transferred my grip to Kevin's shoulder to keep him down.
"Let me go, you fucking bitch!" He was screaming it now, writhing, trying to get away. I felt the air curdling. He was lashing out with powers, too panicked to do something targeted, but he could cause a lot of damage even unfocused if we let him. I sharpened my hold on my own energies, began to weight the air around him to damp down the chaos he was causing...
... and Myron Lazlo said, "No, Joanne. That isn't how we do things. Let him try."
"He isn't just going to try," I gasped breathlessly.
Tough to talk when my diaphragm didn't want to pull in air. "He's going to make what happened at the Bellagio happen here, don't you get it? Only worse!"
"I know." Lazlo closed his eyes. His face went serene. Not empty, just... peaceful. Behind him, Ashworth laid a hand on Lazlo's blue-suited shoulder, and then there were more of them, forming a human chain that matched the Djinn's across the room. Two circles of power.
Balancing.
What the Ma'at were putting out wasn't energy; it was absence. Where the Wardens concentrated on the subatomic world, manipulating molecules, adjusting the vibration speed and makeup to rebuild the world in our image, the Ma'at went deeper. I couldn't see how, until I let myself go still and quiet with them.
Kevin's energy raged like a forest fire on the aetheric, power enough to destroy the city, level forests, break the land into rubble. And power moves.
But the Ma'at surrounded it. Contained it.
Negated it.
"For every action, reaction," Lazlo murmured. "For every vibration, a cancellation. We don't seek to win the struggle. We seek to stop the game."
I remembered the card game. The cards floating over the table. Even as it formed in my head, I heard Lazlo sigh. "You see power where no power exists. We didn't float the cards. We simply negated the forces that acted on them to make them fall."