Rachel Caine: Heat Stroke

I flew.

The glitter clung to me, built up like a thick snow coating, but I refused to let it slow me down. I didn’t see or sense any other presences up on the aetheric, but if there were any, they’d have been blue snowmen like me, masked from contact. Any Djinn still trapped here were probably frozen solid—if not frozen dead. Damn .

I collided with something. Not anything solid— that wasn’t possible, on the aetheric plane—but the pulling confusion was just as surprising and upsetting. I drifted, shook off as much coldlight as I could, and tried to see what it was that I’d hit. I had to wipe off sparkles like ice on a windshield, but I finally realized that I’d found a Djinn. Which one, I couldn’t tell. It didn’t matter.

I grabbed hold and towed it with me, fast, bucking the glitter headwind as fast as I could, and then falling, with a shocking sense of gravity, into…

… Patrick’s apartment. It was just as I’d left it. Sedate, well furnished, kind of pallid in a Better Homes and Gardens kind of way.

Blood dried to a dull brown mat on the neutral carpet where Lewis had been taken down.

I looked over at the Djinn I’d brought with me as his eyes rolled back in his head and he collapsed in slow motion to the floor.

I’d brought Patrick home.

Even though there was no time, I couldn’t leave him like this, with the coldlight eating its way through him like worms on speed. He was already screaming, skin bubbling and beginning to slough. I grabbed hold—tried not to think about the slick, greasy feel of his flesh—and called all of the coldlight to me. It spiraled eagerly, abandoning the feast and climbing my arms in a blue-white frenzy.

“Nice doggies,” I murmured, and as soon as I was sure I had enough of them, I went across the room and shook them off in a flurry of disappointed critters. They dropped into the carpet like invisible fleas. They’d eventually make their way back to whatever victim was handy, but with any luck, Patrick would survive. At least as long as any of the rest of us would.

“Sara?” Patrick’s eyes were open, blue and blind. His glasses were gone. I went back to him, got on my knees, and leaned over him. He slowly focused on me, and went pale. “Oh. You.”

“Yeah. Nice of you to remember. By the way, this whole slavery thing… it’s working out just great.” I resisted the urge to punch him while he was down.

His gaze sharpened. “You’re still alive.”

“Surprised?”

That woke up a weak smile. “Pleased, actually. Help me up.” He held out his hand. I stared at it for a second, then took it. Warm skin, as human and real as my own. Whether or not it was as human and real as an actual living person was something else entirely. Patrick heaved himself to his feet, staggered drunkenly and used me as a cane for a few seconds. “Ugh. I see you haven’t changed your mind about the room.”

“Yeah, well, I admit, the retro trashy look had its charms, but right at the moment I’m more concerned with saving some lives.” I pointed up. Even inside of his apartment, I could hear the thunder and feel the electric snap of the lightning strikes. “Gotta go.”

“Yes,” he agreed. He looked at me very seriously for a few seconds. “Where is Sara?”

“At Jonathan’s house.”

He looked ill. “They’ll destroy her.”

“Actually, they’ve got bigger problems to worry about just now. Like me.” I left him and moved around to the front of the couch.

Yep. There he was, my teen Nero-in-training, crashed out in a sprawl on the leather couch, mouth gaping to show poor dental hygiene. He was snoring.

Also smiling.

I leaned over and whispered, “Kevin? Wake up.”

No response. Damn. I’d drawn on his own power to put him in this trance. Was it something I could snap him out of? I hadn’t been thinking that far ahead, I had to admit. I reached out, grabbed, and shook him. His oily hair flopped back and forth, and he snorkled a breath. His eyelids fluttered.

Nothing.

“Kevin!” I screamed, and shook him again. “Damn, what do I have to do? Wake up!”

He mumbled something, smacked at me ineffectually with a clumsy hand, and tried to turn over.

I grabbed him and kissed him. After the first few slack seconds, I felt him kiss me back.

Ewwwwwwww. Not that boys his age were great kissers in general, but he had a lot to learn. No style points. I broke free before the wiggling worm of his tongue got too far into my mouth and shook him again, for emphasis.

His eyes were open, but cloudy. Cleaned up, he probably wouldn’t be half bad, but the fact was he wasn’t cleaned up, or even clean. The body odor alone made me think of places without running water or inside plumbing.

“Wha?” The word was garbled, but still semicoherent. I yanked him up by the grimy T-shirt to a sitting position. “… gone.”

“Shut up and listen,” I said. “I need your help.”

“… help?” He blinked slowly, like an owl. His pupils were way too large. “Why?”

“Philosophy some other time. Just repeat what I say. Got it?”

“Repeat.”

“Very good.” I resisted the urge to pat him on the head, mostly because I really didn’t want to get greasy. “I order you to destroy the storm.”

“Mmmm?” His eyes were glazing over. I pinched him hard enough to make a welt, and he yelped and cleared up. “What?”

“I order you to destroy the storm. Say it.”

Oops. I’d woken him up too much. “Why?” The vague look was vanishing like snow under an Arizona summer sun. “You. You… you tricked me.”

“Just say it.”

“Or?” His jaw hardened as muscles clenched. He was willing himself awake, and all of the nice happy thoughts he’d been dreaming were slipping away. “You’ll put me to sleep again?” I’d liked him better asleep. Who wouldn’t? “No. I’m your, ah, master. You do what I say.”

“Then tell me to destroy the storm.”

His eyes narrowed behind the pretty, girl-length lashes. “Why should I? What’s in it for me?”

“Oh, I don’t know… survival? Can’t you feel this?” But then I realized that of course he couldn’t; for him, like for most people, the storm was just a storm. Bad, yes. A killer. But not sentient, not rabid and scenting fresh meat. Not alive . His talent was fire. “Shit. Please , Kevin. Do one decent thing in your life. I’m begging you. Let me do this.”

He kept staring at me for a few seconds. My bottle was clenched in his fist, my soul in his control, and the lives of thousands hanging in the balance.

“Fine,” he finally said. “Go destroy the damn storm.”

I was almost out of there when he added, “And take me with you.”

I materialized back in the lobby at the Secretariat tower to find it mostly deserted. Martin Oliver was still there; so were some of the security guards. Earth Wardens were shouting to each other over the steady shriek of wind, and a continuous silver curtain of rain was slicing in through broken windows. Everyone on the east side of the building was out, now. The storm had been continuing its grenade attack. The marble was a minefield of ice and glass shards, water, and blood.

Kevin was whooping in my ear. He liked aetheric travel a little too much, even with the smothering blanket of coldlight— ah, that’s right , I remembered, he couldn’t see it. None of them could.

“That is so cool !” he crowed, and did a spastic little dance on the slippery floor. He stopped, stared around. “Jeez. You weren’t kidding.”

“No,” I said. I was boiling over with power now, rich red power that pulsed in time with my fast, adrenalized heartbeats. “Stay here.” I walked over to the nearest broken window.