Heat Stroke

I found the switch, and we fell back to the bed with a solid, vibrating thump that rattled the headboard.

It was a good start.

And on the fifth day of my new life, I had a lovely funeral.

Well, it wasn’t really a funeral—you need a body for a funeral, preferably an open casket, and the fire hadn’t left a whole lot for reconstructive purposes. The Wardens Association was too discreet to hold the service in the UN Building—the corporate offices—so they rented a nice big ballroom over at the Drake Hotel and sent out invitations to three or four hundred Wardens. I heard about it because David heard about it, through whatever arcane grapevine the Dji

“—but you’re not going,” he finished, as we split a small pot of room service coffee. Some vices never go away, even after death. Coffee. Sex. Alcohol. Hell, if I was a smoker, I figure I would’ve still been lighting up and griping about the price of a carton.

I stirred cream into my coffee. David disapproved of cream; it was obvious from the concerned frown that formed between his eyebrows. “I’m not going?” I echoed it mildly, but his attention immediately shifted from my poor coffee etiquette to what I was saying.

“No,” he said. “And we’re not going to fight about that, right?” His eyebrows went up, then down.

“Of course not,” I said, and smiled as I blew gentle ripples on the au lait surface. We were sitting cross-legged on the bed, sheets draped over sensitive bits more because of hot coffee prudence than modesty. “That’s a classic guy mistake, by the way.”

“Excuse me?”

“Sleeping with me, then thinking you can tell me what to do.”

Those eyebrows, so expressive. They pulled together again, threatened to close ranks across his forehead. “I didn’t—”

“Did.”

“—sleep with you. In fact.”

“Common usage. Did too.”

“Didn’t.”

“Did too.”

He held up one hand, palm out. “Okay, I didn’t mean it that way. I just meant that it’s too dangerous for you to go out among humans right now. Especially Wardens.”

“And therefore, according to you, I’m not going. Because it’s too dangerous.”

“Therefore,” he agreed. We sipped coffee. There’s something oddly relaxing about the smell—rich, nutty, the very essence of the earth—and I breathed it in and just savored the moment. Another great advantage of being Dji

David finally sighed and set down his cup with a well-bred tinkle of china. “So therefore you’re going to completely blow off the warning and go anyway, no matter what I say, right?”

I tried to be sober, but my mouth wouldn’t obey me; it curved into a provocative smile. “Figured that out all by yourself?”

He was frowning again. God, he was cute when he frowned. I wanted to lean over and kiss away that crease between his eyebrows. “Please listen to me. I’m serious. It’s too dangerous.”

“Yeah, I got that from the part where you said it was too dangerous.”

“And?”

“And… it’s still my choice, unless you’re pla

He had saved my life, and there was this very definite relationship forming between us, but I felt it was important to get the ground rules straight. I took a mouthful of rich hazelnut-flavored brew, softened with that creamy edge, and swished it around my tongue. Intense. I felt like if I concentrated, I could follow the beans all the way back to the rich Colombian ground that nurtured them—back to the plant that bore them—back through time, all the generations. Same with the hazelnuts, the water… Even the china cup had memories attached. Good, bad, happy, frightening. I didn’t have to concentrate to sense them swirling like the cream in the coffee.

So much history in the world. So many possibilities for the future. Why was it that as a human I’d never understood any of it?

“Jo?” David. He was staring at me with those rich orange-flecked brown eyes. Had he been talking?

Yeah, probably. I’d spaced. “I’m not talking about physical danger. There’s little that can hurt you now, but just being strong isn’t everything. You have to learn how to use that strength. And until you do, it’s not a good idea for you to put yourself in situations where you might have to…”

“Act like a Dji

He looked relieved. “Exactly.”

“What if I just act like a normal person?”

“Not a good idea.”

“Because?”

He got up and walked over to the windows. As he eased aside the curtain, a shaft of sunlight speared in and glittered on his skin; he pulled in a deep breath that I heard all the way from the bed and stood there, staring out, for a long time.

My turn to give him a worried prompt. “David?”

He half turned and gave me a sweet, sad smile. “In case you haven’t noticed, you’re not a normal person. And if you get yourself into trouble, you could give away what you are. Once that happens, you’re no longer safe.”

“Because I could get claimed.”

The smile died and went somewhere bad. “Exactly.”

David had been claimed twice that I knew about. Neither had been pleasant experiences. His last owner and operator had been… well, a former friend of mine—and before that he’d been at the mercy of a sweetheart of a guy named Bad Bob Biringanine. I knew from personal experience that David had done things in Bad Bob’s name that would turn anyone’s stomach. He’d had no choice in that. No choice in anything.

It was the horror he was trying to warn me about.

“I’ll be careful,” I said softly. “Come on, if you had the chance to see your own funeral, wouldn’t you take it?”

“No,” he said, and turned back to whatever view there was outside of that window—being New York City, probably not a hell of a lot other than buildings. The sunlight loved him. It glided over planes and curves, over smooth skin, and glittered like gold dust on soft curls of hair. He reached out and leaned a hand against the window, reaching up toward the warmth. “Your human life’s over, Jo. Let it go. Focus on what’s next.”

There were so many people I’d left behind. My sister. Cousins. Family-by-choice from the Wardens, like Paul Giancarlo, my mentor. Like my friend Lewis Levander Orwell, the greatest Warden of all, whose life I’d saved at the cost of my own. We had a long and tangled history, me and Lewis—not so much love as longing. One of the great precepts of magic, that like calls to like. We’d gravitated together like opposite magnetic charges. Or possibly matter and antimatter. If not for David…

I realized, with a jolt of surprise, that I wanted to see Lewis again. Some part of me would always long for him. It wasn’t a part I ever wanted David to know about.

“What’s next is that I let go of that life,” I said aloud. “Which I can’t do without some kind of… good-bye. It’s as much a memorial for me as of me, right? So I should go.”

“You just want to eavesdrop on what people are saying about you.”

Duh, who wouldn’t? I tried bribery. “They’ll probably have cookies. And punch. Maybe a nice champagne fountain.”

It was tough to bribe a Dji

“Well, I’d rather go with you. Because, like you pointed out, it might not be safe.”