Rachel Caine: Heat Stroke

“We’ve got to go.”

I didn’t like the way he said it. I didn’t like the sudden tension in his shoulders, either. “Trouble?” I asked.

He smiled slightly. “It’s still your middle name, isn’t it?”

“Who was on the phone?”

“Later.”

“Come on, remember the whole mushroom thing? Who called?”

He gave me a long, unhappy look, but he must have known he couldn’t just drag me around like a suitcase. “Lewis.”

“Lewis?”

“He wants to meet you.”

“Oh. Right. He… mentioned that, back there—you know, at the funeral.” I gestured vaguely over my shoulder in a direction that probably didn’t indicate the Drake Hotel. “Something on his mind.”

He didn’t look any happier at that revelation. “Joanne, you have to—”

“—leave my mortal life behind, yeah, I know, but it’s Lewis . You know?”

He did. And once again, no spikes on the happiness meter. I let the sheet fall away, looked down at myself, and frowned. Oh, the skin looked okay; evidently, I had the knack, just not the expertise yet to do it fast. No, I was thinking about clothes. As in the lack thereof.

“Um…” I pointed at my breasts. “Don’t think they let me go out in public like this.”

David crossed his arms across his chest and looked, well, obstinate. Cute, but obstinate. “You expect me to do everything for you?”

“No. Just dress me. Please.”

“And what if I don’t?”

Ah, he’d figured out a way to keep me out of trouble. Or so he thought. I gave him a warm, evil smile. “Then you’d better hope I can master that not-being-noticed thing really quickly, because otherwise me and the NYPD are going to have a beautiful friendship.” I swung my legs out and stood up, and started walking for the door. He stepped back, looked down at his crossed arms, then up and over the top of his glasses. Effective. He must have known how gorgeous he looked doing that.

“Seriously,” I said, and clicked back the privacy lock. The hotel air-conditioning whispered cold over my skin in places that didn’t normally get to experience a breeze; I shivered and felt goosebumps texturing me all over. “Going outside now. Clothes would be a plus, but whatever…”

Okay, I was bluffing, but it was a really, really good bluff. I swung the door open, hoping there wouldn’t be some society matron with her poodle-dog in the hall, and stepped out with my naked feet on the plush carpet. Expecting clothes to materialize around me.

They didn’t.

It wasn’t that good a bluff, apparently. David raised the stakes.

The door slammed shut behind me, slapping me like a barely friendly smack on my bare butt. I yelped, crossed my arms over my breasts, then dropped one hand down to make a totally inadequate privacy panel. Shifted from one foot to another and pressed my back against the wood and said, “Funny, David! Come on, help me out here.”

He didn’t sound amused. “You need to learn how to dress yourself.”

“I will. I swear. Just—not right now, okay?”

“Not okay. Either you admit you’re not ready and come back inside, or put your own clothes on. Out there.” Not a drop of sympathy in David’s disembodied voice. I pulled in a breath, leaned against the door, and struggled to concentrate. Clothes are tricky, when you have to create them out of air and energy and make them look, well, good . Although frankly at the moment, I figured I’d better settle for fast and ugly. Wal-Mart was okay by me.

I squeezed my eyes shut and focused. Seconds ticked away. I started to feel the burn of panic because my mind was completely, utterly—

“Any time,” David advised. His voice didn’t come from behind the door, it was in front of me. I peeked and saw him leaning against the opposite hall wall. No way to classify that particular smile except as sadistic—cute, but sadistic. He checked his watch. “It’s a high-traffic area. I give you… two, maybe three minutes, if you’re lucky, before someone comes along.”

“Bastard,” I muttered, and went back to concentrating. When I had the image in my head, I opened my eyes wide and stared at him as I started building my new wardrobe. And yeah, okay, I was trying to get back at him.

But still, it was so cool.

I added pieces the same way I’d constructed my body, from the inside out: boy-cut panties first (lacy), bra (sheer), stockings (thigh high), knee-length leather skirt (black), lime green midriff-baring shirt (polyester). David leaned against the wall and watched this striptease-in-reverse with fabulously expressive eyebrows slowly climbing toward heaven. I finished it off with a pair of strappy lime green three-inch heels, something from the Manolo Blahnik spring collection that I’d seen two months ago in Vogue .

He looked me over, blinked behind the glasses, and asked, “You’re done?”

I took offense. “Yeah. You with the fashion police?”

“I don’t think I’d pass the entrance exam.” The eyebrows didn’t come down. “I never knew you were so…”

“Fashionable?”

“Not really the word I was thinking.”

I struck a pose and looked at him from under my supernaturally lustrous eyelashes. “Come on, you know it’s sexy.”

“And that’s sort of my point.”

Oh yeah. We were going to see Lewis. I chose not to think too much on what that revealed about my motives. Too late now. I walked past him, head high, heading for the elevators.

“Coming?” I asked. He fell in step with me.

“Considering I’m the only one of us who knows where he said to meet him, you’d better hope.”

“I’m surprised you’re so eager.” Not that he and Lewis didn’t get along, or hadn’t, anyway… “Oh. You’re hoping he’s got some idea about your little sparkly things.”

I got another frown for that one. “I hope that’s what they are.”

“Instead of…?”

“Something else. I just get nervous when the universe doesn’t obey its own laws.”

“Welcome to my world,” I said. “Having kind of a weird life experience these days.”

I hadn’t been out of the room except to travel the aetheric—and that somewhat queasy trip to the Drake Hotel—since we’d checked in; the elegance came as a shock. First, the carpet—a blue-and-gold riot of French Provincialism. Next, the genuine Louis-the-whatever gilt tables with chunky glass vases of silk flowers.

No, I definitely hadn’t dressed to fit the room.

I stopped in the full force of a patch of sunlight in the lobby window and let my skin soak up the energy. I hadn’t realized I needed it until it reached inside and stilled me in a way that only David’s touch had been able to achieve.

David didn’t speak for a moment, just stood with me in that hot golden patch of warmth. When I looked over at him, his eyes were closed, his face rapt in a kind of worship. I took his hand. He looked over at me, smiled, and pushed the down button on the panel for the elevator.

“Why does that feel so good?” I asked. “And don’t tell me it’s because we’ve been shut in a room for days.”

“Like calls to like,” he said. “You’re made of fire now.”

“So I’m going to feel like this every time I pass an open flame? Great. Firegasm.”

“Remember that focus thing we were talking about? Learn to practice it.”

The elevator dinged and yawned open. Nobody inside. We entered and David touched the button for l.

“You haven’t told me where we’re heading.”

“No,” he agreed.

“And you’re not going to?”

“Right.”

“So much for the partnership.”

He was still facing the control panel, deliberating not looking at me. “I’m responsible for your safety, Jo. You have to let me make the decisions about what’s too dangerous.”