Rachel Caine: Cape Storm

“Hmmmm. There’s an idea. Two birds and one very big stone.” Bad Bob slammed the book closed and put it under his arm. “All right, then. Let’s see what you can do, my child. Impress me.”

Moira sat down on a handy boulder, open wine bottle in both hands on her lap, and tossed glossy red hair back over her shoulders. “Rahel,” she said. “I want you to break Joanne Baldwin’s right leg in two. Use your hands. Do it now.”

She knew the rules of commanding a Djinn—be specific about intent, method, and time frame. And I could see that they’d had plenty of practice with Rahel—she hadn’t gained that traumatized fury without cause.

“Do it slowly,” Moira said. “Make her feel every second of it.”

Rahel’s eyes focused on me, and she began walking across the stones toward where I sat. Not a hell of a lot I could do to stop her; if I tried to resist, my other leg was sure to be crushed, and maybe even pulled off by this tentacle thing Bad Bob was using for a tether. She still looked ridiculous in her getup, but I didn’t let that fool me for a second. I’d seen the Djinn in the grip of truly evil people, and they were no more to be reasoned with than the blade of a knife.

I looked past Rahel at Moira. “I guess you hate me for being the daughter he never had. Daddy didn’t trust you, did he? That’s why he came after me in the first place. Because you weren’t measuring up. Either that, or he wanted to screw me. Your choice.”

Bad Bob’s face went very still, and I knew I’d guessed right.

So did Moira. She surged to her feet. “Rahel! When I tell you, you’re going to kill that bitch for me!”

One rule of commanding an embottled Djinn: Never give your orders angry. Moira had just forgotten to explicitly frame her order as to whom to kill. Bitch could apply to, oh, more than one of us standing here, and unless she caught that error later on, Moira was in for a nasty surprise.

I saw the light flare gold in Rahel’s eyes, and I took a deep breath. Wait, I mouthed. The desire to strike was almost primal in her, and she knew she was close, so close to having the freedom to exact her revenge.

I knew I could push that button anytime I wanted to—but first, I had to endure a little more. Moira would think of her mistake if I gave her the time.

I needed to keep her engaged.

Rahel bent down and put her hands on my outstretched right leg, the nontentacled one. Her opera gloves felt cool and smooth against my skin. “She did say to do this slowly,” she said, and I let out a slow breath, then nodded. Rahel was telling me, without wasting words, that she had identified the gaps in Moira’s original order. To a Djinn, the word slowly meant something entirely different than it did to a human. Their time-scales were vast, and that instruction was not nearly as specific as Moira might have believed it was.

Now it was up to us to hide that fact.

Rahel froze, with her hands on my leg. I waited. I didn’t feel anything—no increase in pressure, no pain, nothing. She’d taken the freedom Moira’s instructions offered to simply stretch this out so long that it might take a lifetime for her grip to increase its force enough to crack a bone, much less break it.

“Nice,” I murmured, and got a brief, cold parting of her lips. Her teeth were filed to points. “Don’t panic, whatever I do.”

Rahel raised one arched eyebrow, and I began to struggle against her grip, panting—selling the idea that she was hurting me, when in fact she was doing nothing but pinning my right leg to the stone.

As performances go, this one probably was a bit over the top even for high school melodrama, but Moira lapped it up like cream. I tossed in some begging and bargaining. She loved it. Pretty girl, but either Bad Bob’s genetics or Bad Bob’s black tattoo had rendered her broken and sick. I remembered someone else like her—Kevin’s stepmother, Yvette Prentiss. The avid shine in Moira’s blue eyes as I threw myself around and shrieked in simulated agony was almost exactly the same.

Then again, Bad Bob had been involved with Yvette, too. I had the feeling all the sickness came from one poisoned well.

Behind her, seated on his plastic throne, Bad Bob looked less focused on my performance. He scanned the horizons restlessly, frowning. His attention was on the effect, not the cause—he wanted my pain to draw my hypothetical rescue out from hiding.

I could have told him that it wasn’t coming. Lewis was too careful for that.

I wasn’t sure how long Rahel intended to carry on our little drama, but my voice was getting hoarse from all the screaming, and even Moira’s attention was starting to wander. When you’re losing your torturer’s focus, it’s probably time to wrap up the play.

I let out a heartrending shriek of utter agony, and went pitifully limp, weeping like my heart would break. I didn’t have to simulate being exhausted. Throwing yourself into something like that takes a sweaty, aching toll.

Ah, she liked that. I had Moira’s full attention once more. “Rahel, break Joanne Baldwin’s other leg,” Moira said, and her pale tongue came out to lick her lips. “Do it just as slowly.”

Really, you can’t spell sadist without the word sad . She’d just forgotten that my other leg was the one wrapped in Bad Bob’s tentacle tether.

Rahel might not have normally been able to take the tentacle from my left leg, but she’d just been ordered to do something that allowed her to freely interpret method, and in one lightning-fast move, she reached down, plunged her fingers deep into the base of the tentacle, and ripped.

Oh Christ that hurt. The tentacle fought back, clamping down on my leg with all its muscular strength, and I felt things pop and move that really shouldn’t be shifting around inside. Rahel ripped at it again, digging her sharp fingernails into dark flesh and ichor, and tore the thing loose from its roots deep in the rocks.

I rolled free, still wrapped in the black coil.

“What the hell are you doing?” Moira screamed. “Rahel, stop! ”

Rahel froze, still crouched over the thrashing remains of the tentacle. I had seconds, at most, to make this happen, and I knew it.

Strangely, Bad Bob hadn’t reacted at all. I saw his face in a blur as I rolled behind the shelter of more stones, and it was impassive and watchful.

Assessing.

I didn’t have time to try to remove the tentacle, but I didn’t need to; cut off from its body, the thing was already dissolving into slime. When it drained away, it left my skin pallid, wrinkled, and torn, like old paper soaked for too long. I was losing blood, too much of it. I slammed Earth power through my nerves and pinched off broken capillaries, set up a healing matrix, and shut off the pain.

I couldn’t afford it right now.

“Hey, Moira!” I yelled. “How old are you? Maybe nineteen? Twenty? I was about your age the first time your dad tried to screw me!”

No girl wants to hear that about her father, especially when it comes from the daughter-rival that Daddy loves more.

Like I said, I could push that button anytime I wanted.

“Rahel!” Moira’s voice was a raw, vicious snarl. “Kill that bitch now !”

Again with the lack of specificity.

I felt the energy shift, darken, and as I peered around the edge of the boulder, I saw Rahel streak straight for Moira.

It’s possible that Moira might have recovered in time to order her to stop, although Rahel’s attack clearly caught her totally by surprise.

To make damn sure it wouldn’t fail, I reached out with a burst of power and filled Moira’s mouth with seawater. She choked, gagged, and then it was too late. As the water rippled down from Moira’s open lips, Rahel’s claws sank deep into her throat.