Rachel - Midnight at Mart

Midnight at Mart's

a new Weather Warden short story by Rachel Caine

This story falls between the end of Chill Factor, the third novel of the Warden series, and Windfall, the fourth novel.

Quitting the Wardens sounded like a really, really good idea at the time. I mean, there's nothing like going out in a blaze of glory with a great exit line, kicking sand in the bully's face, all that stuff. And it did feel good, when I told my bosses to stuff it, and exited stage left with my dignity intact.

Besides, I wasn't exactly losing on the deal, thanks to Rahel's parting gift of cash and newly-minted (and hopefully valid) credit cards. I was feeling like the star of my own slightly over-the-top action film as I burned rubber out of the hotel parking lot and onto the endless desert road.

That feeling wore off after thirty minutes of monotonous travel. After that, I was just feeling tired, achy from all my assorted abuse of the past few days and weeks, and … lonely.

I couldn't decide whether I loved the desert, or hated it. Bit of both, I supposed. There was something eerie and remote about the vast stretches of land; it seemed so unapproachable, and so empty. Hostile. But when the sun touched it just right, layered it in velvet and gold, it was like a goddess had opened her jewelry box. The sky was a bright, brilliant turquoise, with a glittering diamond sun. The road gleamed like onyx.

I kept the Viper's air conditioning on high. Experiencing the beauties of nature is one thing. Sweating through it is something I like to leave to sturdier people … say, some who haven't been killed a few times, beaten up, and nearly drowned. I deserved a little peace and comfort, right? I did. I was convinced of that.

In fact, I got myself good and worked up about how much I deserved not to be tossed in the center of the crossfire again.

I was so convinced that when I felt the air shift around me in patterns not associated with the air conditioner, and sensed a presence forming in the passenger seat next to me, I felt a flash of utter fury. Enough, already.

I'm done. "Get lost," I said flatly to whatever Djinn was about to pay me a visit. It wouldn't be David, and he was the only one I wanted to spend time with at the moment.

Sure enough, it was Rahel. The tall, elegant Djinn looked over at me as she manifested herself, and I returned the favor just for a second. She looked great, as always. Gorgeous, smoothly groomed, dressed in a lime sherbet color that was something of a change from her usual neon shades but still startling against her dark chocolate skin. Eyes of a haunting shade of gold. She'd done something new with her hair. Still in cornrows, but there were more beads woven in, shades of greens and golds and blues. Vaguely Egyptian.

"Is that any way to greet someone who saved your life?" she asked. And yes, she had. More than once, technically. But I wasn't feeling all that fair at the moment.

"Sure, when they just drop uninvited into a moving car. Seriously. Whatever chain you want to yank, yank it and go. I'm done with the drama."

I pressed additional speed out of the Viper. When I'm pissed, I drive aggressively. Yeah, like you don't.

Please.

"I need something from you," Rahel said soberly. "A boon."

Wait a minute. Wait just a damn minute. The Djinn didn't ask for favors. They granted them. Grudgingly, sure, but in accordance with an agreement laid down in the mists of time and space. Their view was that mortals basically had nothing they wanted, so … a favor? Weird.

I thought about it for several seconds, eyes fixed on the road. My shoulders were hurting. I deliberately relaxed them, or at least tried to; apparently while I'd been thinking of other things, my muscles had been replaced with metal guy wires, strung at maximum tension.

"What kind of favor?" I asked.

"Return to the Wardens."

I blinked. Surely I hadn't heard her right. "Why?"

Rahel drummed her sharp-nailed talons on the window glass next to her — dry, clicking sounds that tightened those guy wires just another ratchet. "They have need of you."

"Oh, please. If you weren't Free Djinn, I'd swear some Warden had put you up to this, but …" One had.

Crap. "Lewis sent you."

The steady percussive rhythm of her tapping continued, as annoying as fingernails scraping paint.

"No," I said. "I'm not going back. Not for Lewis. Not for anybody. I'm done, Rahel, and you can tell him that for me. I'm not putting up with the bullshit, I'm not playing politics, and I'm not going to make compromises and tell myself it's for a just cause. I'm no longer Warden material."

Rahel's eyes narrowed. Burning. "I am asking as a favor, sistah. Understand me. This is not something I do lightly."

"Or ever, I'm guessing," I said. "Respect, babe, but I'm not doing it. Not for you. Not even for Lewis. I got their asses out of a sling, and that's all I'm good for. Just let me rest."

She laughed. It was a thick, velvety laugh, dark with possibilities. It raised the fine hairs on my arms. If tigers could laugh … "Dead men rest very well."

I hit the brakes. The Viper's tires grabbed, screamed, slid and fishtailed. Even before the car had come to a complete stop, I turned to face her. I was feeling an overburn of fury, and I'm pretty sure she read it in my expression. Or aura, at least. "Don't you dare threaten me," I said, low and certain. "You're a Djinn, sure, but you're not claimed, and I'm a well-trained Warden at the top of my game. Maybe both of us get hurt. I don't care."

Her face went utterly still. With the Egyptian-style beading in her hair, it gave her an eerie look, like Tutankhamen's gorgeous funeral mask.

"You presume," she said. "Crawling mortals do not threaten the Djinn. You should know better."

"I'm tired of pussy-footing around your ego. You have a problem with it? Leave!" I roared it at her. It occurred to me, in that red-tinged moment, that I was doing something really stupid, but I'd had enough crap, and I was being human. Unreasonable. Taking out my wounded, scared feelings on the first likely target.

Well, at least she was up to it.

Rahel regarded me with bright-swirling eyes, as incandescent as the sun above, and I was coldly reminded of the kinds of powers the Djinn could touch, if they chose. Of the vastness of their history, and the fragile bonds that constituted Djinn civilization, at least as it related to humans.

"I will go," she said. "But you should have been more mannered, Snow White. Remember that when you find yourself … lacking."

And she was gone. She went without fanfare or warning, another shift of air and a slight popping sound, like what you get when you twist the lid on a sealed jar.

I was shaking all over. Hysteria, fury, fear … shame. Why had I yelled at Rahel? I thought I'd been at the top of the world, when I'd pulled away from the motel, and yet here I was, less than an hour out of town, throwing the most dangerous sort of tantrum. Lashing out.

Humans are weird like that. I had no excuse.

I breathed in and out for a while, then wiped sweat from my forehead, turned up the air conditioner, and put the Viper back in gear.

###

I didn't think she meant it literally, about finding myself lacking.

Rahel's revenge for my fit of temper became blindingly, stupidly apparent when I stopped at Mart's Texaco in Pine Springs, Arizona, because when I opened my wallet, it was empty. All the new credit cards: gone. All the cash she'd granted me earlier: missing. She'd been scrupulously fair about it. I still had what I'd had before her contributions.

Well, that was okay. I didn't need Djinn charity, I told myself self-righteously, and proffered my Warden-issued American Express card to pay for the gas.