Rachel Caine: Chicks Kick Butt

“Where’d you get this?” Mr. Security demanded, flourishing the paper.

David jerked his chin at the model. “From her,” he said. “She’s my sister.”

“Your what ?” As if no supermodel in the world had siblings, or parents, or any kind of family. Well, they did often look lab-grown, that was a true fact.

“Ask her,” David said, raising his eyebrows. The security dude stalked off, as much as someone so muscle-bound could effectively stalk, and arrived next to the diamond model. He bent over and spoke to her. She leaned past him, looking at David, and then smiled.

“David?” I asked, in a voice that was probably way too confused. “Who is that?”

He smiled, but didn’t answer. Annoying.

Security Steve was trudging his way back, and he looked … apologetic. Not that he had a very mobile sort of face, but I got the subtlety from the hangdog set of his slumped shoulders. He leaned in and said, in a much different kind of voice, “Sorry, sir. Didn’t know who you were. Miss, why don’t you park right over there, next to the director’s car? Miss Whitney wants to say hello.”

“Miss Whitney,” I repeated, and followed parking instructions as David continued with that Cheshire cat grin. “Do I even want to know how you’ve picked up a sudden sister named Miss Whitney?”

“The usual way,” he said. “At least, for me.”

“She’s Djinn,” I guessed. “New Djinn.”

“Not just new. She’s only a few years old. Generationally, she’s no older than you.”

Okay, that was bad news. Whitney was a Djinn—okay, fine, I’d stopped trying to figure out why David liked me better than hot immortal chicks that could move mountains and look any way he wanted them. But the fact was, she was actually my own age, and looked about ten years younger, and at least a dozen points hotter, which already sucked. She was also wearing a couple of million dollars of high-carat diamonds in a skimpy little outfit that left nothing at all to the imagination, not even how expert her bikini wax was.

And she had a cute, infectious smile. The bitch. Honestly, that was just taking it too far.

And she winked at me as we walked toward her; then she swigged some bottled water, and shooed away the two walking-shorts-wearing prettifiers who were hovering around her touching her up. “Well,” she said, with a distinct, low-pitched Southern drawl that made the trooper’s sound like he came from Nebraska. “If it isn’t Mr. Boss himself. Excuse me if I don’t kneel. I think this bikini might leave scars.”

David snorted, but he looked amused. “Whitney, what the hell is this?”

“Fun.” She shrugged a little, which woke a blinding flash of diamonds that must have been a menace to low-flying aircraft. “I get bored just being all-powerful. Can’t a girl have a little fun sometimes?” She must have learned the accent, I decided, from Gone with the Wind . “You’re just jealous ’cause you know this little thing wouldn’t fit you.”

She was saying it to David, but her eyes changed focus, shifting over to me on the last word. Ooooh. I felt the burn, and the shock of getting a Djinn stare at full strength. Whitney’s eyes were brilliant lavender blue, Liz Taylor’s eyes on crack, and there was a lazy mischief in them that reminded me of cats and mice and unfortunate endings for the rodent in the equation.

I put on my best shove-it smile and held out my hand. “Joanne Baldwin,” I said. “I don’t think we’ve met.”

“Only by rumor,” Whitney agreed languidly, without accepting my handshake. She held up her own and blew on the long, beautifully shaped nails. “Sorry. Polish is still wet.”

That was so lame an excuse that even David lost his smile. “Whit,” he said. “Play nice.”

“Or what, big daddy? You’ll spank me? Mmmmm.” Her tongue glided over her lower lip. Pure suggestion.

His eyes kindled in a hot bronze glow, trapping hers. “Whitney.”

She looked away, and for the first time, I saw a flicker of fear. “Sorry,” she said. “Didn’t mean to be rude.”

“Let’s try this again. What are you doing here?”

She trailed a fingertip over the diamond-set strap of her bikini top, and tapped one of the stones as she lifted her eyebrow. David let out an impatient breath and said, “You can make one. Don’t be stupid!”

“I can’t make one like this one. This one is perfect. You know how I feel about having something that’s perfect.” She licked her lips and glanced over at the car. “ That’s perfect, too.”

David growled, low in his throat, in total frustration. “You will not steal anything, Whitney. I’ve told you before. You’re attracting attention with all this, and I won’t have it. Have your fun. Do your photos, and go quietly. I’m warning you.”

Whitney’s purple eyes narrowed, and she tossed her liquidly dark hair back over her shoulders. Its shine and bounce were perfection itself. She didn’t have to battle frizzy hair and uncontrollable curling. “You may be the big dog, David, but don’t you bite too hard. We both know I can give you a street fight if you want it.”

I had never heard anybody—except maybe Ashan, the leader of the other, older half of the Djinn, a right cold bastard—speak to David that way. When he talked, the New Djinn generally listened, and certainly obeyed when push came to shove.

But not this one.

David, though, wasn’t having any nonsense. He smiled. It wasn’t a pretty smile, and it reminded me that as much as I adored him, as much as he was all the good things that a Djinn could be, he had a dark streak. They all did. And his wasn’t small, just deeply buried and tightly leashed. “Don’t push me,” he said. “Or I’ll break you. For good.”

Whitney flipped him off, drained the rest of her bottled water, and tossed the empty to a distantly hovering staffer, who fielded it with long practice. “I’m bored,” she announced. “Let’s get this show on the road, folks!”

She was the talent, which would normally make her pretty low on the order-giving totem pole—but it seemed like Whitney had already established a brand-new paradigm here in the middle of nowhere. The director—a bulky young man who seemed to prefer wearing his baseball cap backward, which was an asinine thing to do in the Florida sun—straightened up from where he was huddled with a group of people, and clapped his hands. “All right, all right, let’s get busy!” he yelled. “Somebody get Whitney in position! And you two, out of the way!”

He meant me and David, of course. Whitney winked at us, and blew David a mocking kiss as one of her makeup staff swooped in to swirl a brush over her face. David and I withdrew to a point outside of the cameras, behind the crew, and he stood there with his feet planted and arms crossed, looking stubborn and worried as he watched them pose Whitney like a life-sized doll, adjusting her for just the right sparkly angle against the Bugatti.

“Who the hell is she, David?” That probably sounded just a little insecure, but Whitney had rattled me. More than any other female (or female-appearing) Djinn I’d ever met, she seemed interested in direct, sexual competition for the attention of my lover, and I didn’t like it. I didn’t think he particularly did, either, which was a relief, but still.

“I told you, she’s very young,” he said. “She’s—unusual.”

“Yeah, I get that.”

“No, you don’t,” he said. “She became Djinn in a way nobody else we’ve seen has been able to accomplish. Whitney died alone. Not with others, not in some mass disaster or slaughter. She died alone, and she became a Djinn.”