Heat Stroke

“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 Dji

“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. “Dji

“Dji

“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-Dji

“Where’s David?” I asked.

She favored me with something that looked dangerously close to a sneer.

“Ru

“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 Dji

“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 Dji

“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.