Heat Stroke

Lying on the rug next to the side of the bed, like a dog curled up for the night, was an Ifrit. It gleamed black in the shadows, and as I stared down at it, it raised its head and gri

If it was, what I’d given her hadn’t been enough to keep her in Dji

“Hello?” I tried a tentative whisper, and slid up to a sitting position in the bed. The Ifrit didn’t twitch. I kept an eye on it and cranked the volume up a notch. “Anybody?”

The bedroom door framed a moving shadow. Light silhouetted a tall male figure, and for a frozen, relieved second I thought David! but then he moved into the warm glow of the table lamp and it was Jonathan. He had his hands thrust into the pockets of his jeans, looking casual in pose but not in body language. His dark eyes were too bright and too focused.

He didn’t so much as glance at the Ifrit. I found that interesting. The Ifrit raised its head and sniffed at him, climbed to its feet and stalked around him in a circle.

Jonathan kept watching me, though he reached over and patted the Ifrit on the head. It flopped down, elegance etched in darkness, and I felt it watching him with something like adoration.

“So?” he asked me. I rubbed one bare arm and found gooseflesh popping up, courtesy of a slight chill in the air, or maybe his presence.

“Well, I’m not coming apart,” I said. “Gotta be an improvement.”

He nodded. “Came close, though.”

“I figured.” I cleared my throat. “Um… how many others made it here?” He just looked at me for a long few seconds, and I asked the question I dreaded. “Rahel? Did she make it?”

He dropped into a crouch next to the bed. I held the sheet up as a modesty cover, but didn’t particularly worry about it if he decided to check the side view. He didn’t. Quite. “No. How much do you know?”

“Not too damn much.”

“Okay.” He put his bare hand on my bare shoulder, drawing a fresh shiver out of me, but once again I got the therapeutic touch, nothing personal. “You’re clear. You can get up now.”

He turned his back, not as if he was intent on giving me some kind of personal space, more as if he deeply didn’t care whether or not I was naked; I formed clothes as I got up, anyway. Blue denim jeans, work shirt, sturdy boots. They seemed appropriate, here.

“What about David?” I asked.

“You tell me.” His back was still turned; he was pulling things out of the bookcase, restlessly flipping pages. Something to do with his hands. There was so much repressed energy in him, I wondered how he survived here, stuck in this house, unable to leave. He didn’t seem to be someone with a peaceful interior life. “He enjoying himself? Having a good old time with the Widder Prentiss?”

Sarcasm thick enough to spread like manure. I heard the pain underneath, though. And remembered the dream. “I didn’t want him to do that. I would have stopped it if I could have.”

“Yeah, well, not always about what you want. Or any of us, for that matter.” He shoved the book back in place with u

“No wonder humans don’t become Dji

Jonathan’s lips twitched. It might have been a smile, but he didn’t let me see it to be sure. “Yeah, well, you get set in your ways after the first couple of mille

I elected not to get into the gender-specific arguments. “Does she still have him?”

“Madame de Sade? Oh yeah.” He rocked back and forth on his heels, arms still folded.

“And…”

He looked up. “You want details?” The tone could have frozen mercury. “Should’ve stuck around. Could’ve been part of the whole experience. I’m sure he would’ve loved for you to see it.”

Oh, he was so angry… showing none of it in his blank expression, but the raw cutting edges of it came through.

“Rahel is on her way,” he said. “She went to run an errand for me.”

“But you know how dangerous—”

He held up a cautioning finger. “Don’t. Don’t do that. You want to stay on my good side, Jo, let’s get something straight. Never remind me of the obvious. And never assume I didn’t notice it.”

He turned and started for the door. I called a question after him. “How bad is it? Out there in the aetheric?”

“Come with me,” he said, and disappeared down the hall. I followed. “While you were sleeping, you’ve missed the party.”

I was unprepared for a living room full of people. There were at least thirty or forty crowded in. Dji

Jonathan carved an easy path through the crowd and stood next to the fireplace, watching the jockeying for position; when he caught sight of me standing at the back, he jerked his head in a come here gesture that had nothing to do with concern. More like he wanted to keep his enemies close. I grabbed wall space at his shoulder and tried to look insignificant, which turned out to be difficult, since I was drawing stares and whispers. Jonathan held up his hands for quiet. Instant obedience.

“This is Joa

A ta

“Yeah, tell me about it,” Jonathan said, but in a tone that didn’t invite anyone to actually try. “Right. Here’s the thing. We’re what’s left.”

A short, pregnant silence. “What?” someone in the back ventured, looking around. Adding up numbers. “So few?”

“So many lost?” An alarmed, high-pitched voice from up front, I didn’t see who. “Impossible!”

“I didn’t say they were lost. I know right where they are,” Jonathan said. “Just can’t get to them right now. Most are in their bottles, waiting it out. Some… some got trapped on the aetheric. Some can’t hold themselves together anymore because of the—what’d you call it?” He turned to me.

“Coldlight. Sparklies. Fairy dust.”

“Right. That stuff.” He looked back at the audience, face bland and notably free of panic. “Which is coming out of the rift.”

Gray Suit said, “Then someone must go up and close the rift.”

If the previous silence had been pregnant, this one was stillborn. They all looked at each other. Jonathan waited. I finally raised my hand, very slowly. “Um… can I say something?”

He looked over his shoulder at me, did a double take, and half turned my way. “I don’t know, can you?”

Great. A grammar teacher, on top of everything else. “Sorry. May I?”

“Sure.”

“Lewis sent me to seal the rift. I tried, but it didn’t hold.”

Nobody spoke, but a ripple went through the room, like an electric charge rolling between contact points. Polarizing. Jonathan broke the silence in a deliberately soft voice. “You tried? Great. Amateur hour. Lewis should have known better. Probably made things a hundred times worse.”