Rachel Caine - Chill Factor

"Rahel. She…" My throat threatened to close up when I thought about it. "She was after Jonathan. David wouldn't let her…" I couldn't get the rest of it out. It had been a battle nobody else had seen, could see, except for me-the Ifrit would have been invisible to most human eyes.

"Where are they?"

My hand went involuntarily to the leather purse hanging slung around my body. "I put David back in his bottle. Rahel… I claimed her. Put her in the bottle Siobhan used to switch for Jonathan."

Lewis let go of me and held out his hand. "Give her to me." I started to unzip the purse, then hesitated. "Not a whole lot of time left, Jo. Do it."

I took out the bottle and gave it to him. No sensation one way or another; I hadn't felt any click of connection with Rahel, and I didn't feel any loss of it now. But Lewis did, clearly; I saw him suck in a breath and sit up straighter, and for just a second his dulled eyes took on a ferocious gleam.

"She fed off of Jonathan?" he asked.

"Not really sure how much of it was Jonathan and how much was David, but she took a lot." I felt my stomach do that slow drop and roll again. "David- he's bad. I don't know if he's-"

"He's not dead," Lewis said. The way he said it, almost dismissively, made me give him a sharp look and want to follow it up with a sharp right hook, except it wouldn't have exactly been a fair fight. In a tussle between Lewis and a plastic grocery sack, I'd give two to one on the bag.

He opened his fist, and I realized that Siobhan's blood had transferred from my hand to his; it was smeared in dull red clouds over the bottle. I squinted, because it looked as if those dull red clouds were moving . Swirling over the surface of the glass.

Being absorbed.

I felt a fast, hot surge of nausea. What's the matter, Rahel, eating Djinn wasn't enough for you? Now you're snacking on human blood, too ?

"What the hell are you doing?" I snapped at him, and pulled myself back upright to step away, glaring. He considered the bottle balanced on the palm of his hand for a few seconds, then looked up at me with an unreadable expression.

"I don't think I have to do anything. Mazel tov," he said, and dropped the bottle to the carpet. Then he levered himself out of the wheelchair, lifted his foot, and stomped on the glass hard enough to shatter it.

Something pulsed through the room in a silent explosion. It was a ruffle of wind in the real world, a white wave of pure energy in the aetheric; I felt it tug hard inside me as it passed, and the Djinn-child inside of me vibrated like a tuning fork. I instinctively took another step back and covered my stomach with both hands, but the kick I felt wasn't pain; it was something like delight.

A flash of hot gold from the corner of my eye, and then a shadow, moving… shadow taking form, function, grace. Walking with a loose-limbed stride as she formed herself out of the air, out of legend and memory and power.

Rahel's hair was short now, the cornrows reduced to an elegant half-inch crop around the perfect noble sculpture of her head. It set off the line of her cheekbones, the full, lush curve of her lips.

Her eyes blazed hot, hot, hot amber.

She was wearing black, which I'd never seen her do. Black silk shirt flowing over her lean, muscular body, showing off just enough curves to make her feminine. Kind of a retro look for her, very seventies. Hip-hugging black pants, wide belt, no-nonsense kick-ass boots.

"Snow White," she said, and the smile looked real. Not exactly comforting, but certainly real. She gave me a slight, significant bow, then turned her attention to Lewis as he sank back down in his wheelchair. It was sort of a controlled fall. "You seem unwell, my friend."

"Yeah," Lewis croaked. "Had better days."

Rahel reached down and put her hands on either side of his face. Quite a contrast; her skin was a deep blue-black, unsettlingly reminiscent of the hard, glistening shade she'd worn as an Ifrit, and instead of an Ifrit's diamond-sharp claws she had fingernails again, painted a rich, hot gold.

"So I see," she murmured, staring into his eyes. I couldn't have held that stare, not for any price. Lewis blinked, but managed not to flinch too much. "I have suffered, Lewis. Like you. I understand what it is to lose yourself, to know hunger and pain and rage. I understand what it is to face an eternity of it, without relief."

"I'm still human," he said. "Eternity's a little shorter for me."

"So you think?" She shook her head a little. "Eternity is the same for all things."

"Why are you back here?" I whispered. "How did you-"

Rahel's attention turned my way, but her eyes didn't. She made her reply directly to Lewis. "Because there was death."

" Human death," I said, and then I shut up fast, because I remembered just how Jonathan had become a Djinn in the first place, along with David… on a battlefield, surrounded by human death. Then the death spreading, spiraling, fueling a transformation… "Death gives life. That's what Jonathan told me." It meant that there might be another way for Imara… no. I couldn't think about it now. Not now.

"The power is very strong," she said. "Though if I had not drawn so much from such powerful sources, I could not have managed it. Human death tipped the scales; it did not balance them."

She leaned very close to Lewis, so close she was inches from kissing him with those lush, glistening lips. "I can give you what you need."

His smile jerked into something oddly humorous. "You're an exhibitionist now?" His voice had fallen into a silky lower range, resonating in his chest. I knew that tone. It had dropped my knickers on the floor in a lab back in college.

"Tell me you want it." Rahel's voice had gone into the dark, too, ripe and sexy and barely more than a whisper. "Tell me what you will give me for it, my love."

"Undying gratitude?"

"You'll have to do better than that." Her lips just grazed his, and I saw his skin flush redder.

The whole room-the twenty-odd members of Ma'at who had trooped in with us, the silent waitstaff, Marion, Kevin, the muscle-bound security men-we all stood, spellbound, watching this. I don't know about anybody else, but I was starting to expect clothes to come off, which would have had the virtue of being completely, wildly inappropriate, and would scandalize the socks off of the Ma'at.

And then Rahel smiled wider. "Tell me what you'll give me."

"Freedom," Lewis said, and kissed her. Big-time. A hungry, openmouthed kiss. I heard the shocked gasp go through the room. Butler dude-Blevins?-looked so disapproving that I felt like I'd wandered onto the set of a Merchant Ivory film.

Rahel pulled away, standing straight. Lewis's pulse was beating fast; I could see it pounding in his neck. Rahel looked perfectly composed.

"You already gave me that ," she said. "I require your love."

I finally saw Lewis look completely idiotic. Yep. That was an utterly blank look, blank as a codfish. "What?"

"Love," she said distinctly. "Devotion. Shall you give it? Or shall I go now and leave you to deal with this as you please?"

He licked his lips. Probably still tasting her there. Myron Lazlo's shock finally wore off enough for him to step forward and say sternly, "This is neither the time nor the place to-"

"Silence!" she hissed, and snapped an open hand his direction, gold talons suddenly looking a lot less like a fashionable manicure and more like something you'd use to gut fish. "I do not speak to you , man. It was not a general invitation."

Lazlo wisely decided to back off. In fact, everyone backed off a couple of respectful, precautionary steps. It was just Lewis, his wheelchair, and the Djinn.

She looked good in black. Strong, lethal, sexy as hell. I wondered if it was something she'd picked up from Jonathan or David, in that free-for-all fight for survival.