Chill Factor

his forehead gently as she stroked his oily, tangled hair.

'That was lovely,' she said. 'Very fine work. I commend you.'

Kevin looked rapt. His face was shining and, for once, the light in his eyes wasn't one of greed or fury.

It was something close to love.

'Now we need to help,' Marion said. 'There are a lot of injured. Come with me.'

She stepped over a chunk of fallen concrete and held out her hand to him.

'Kevin!'

Siobhan's shrill voice. She was getting to her feet- Jonathan not helping-and brushing dust off her shorts. There were bloody cuts and scrapes on her, but nothing serious, I thought.

She looked royally pissed off.

Kevin hesitated, looking back. His fingers were just a couple of inches from Marion's beckoning hand. Go, I begged him. Learn what the real Wardens do. See what a difference you can be in the world.

I wished I'd duct-taped the girl to a chair. Hindsight.

'Kevin,' Marion said, in a much more adult tone. Not commanding, not wheedling, just reminding him of what was important.

The light faded out of his face, and he took a step back. 'Why should I help them? What'd they ever do for me?'

Marion dropped her hand back to her side, turned, and walked away to kneel by the side of the first person she saw. Marion was an Earth Warden. Healing was so much a part of her that she couldn't deny it, and I could see from the torment in Kevin's face that he was feeling that part of the heritage he'd stolen from Lewis, as well. Earth powers had a hell of a lot of strength, but also a carried a great load of compassion and responsibility.

I watched as Kevin turned back to Siobhan, and I felt myself mourn inside for the lost opportunity.

'Joanne.' David's voice drew me back to the here and now, to his body pressed against me in the narrow space. 'Are you hurt?'

I shook my head and saw dust sift off my hair. Sneezed. 'Just my image. Go help Marion. Save whoever you can.'

He kissed my forehead without comment, and left me. I picked my way across rubble and almost slipped on a wide round plastic tray piled with glasses; I looked around for the waiter, but he was gone. At least it didn't look like there were too many casualties. Amazing.

Jonathan had righted one of the unsplintered chairs and seated himself, staring out at the mess. I stopped next to him. Siobhan and Kevin were hovering nearby, Siobhan whispering, Kevin listening.

'Not your bottle?' I produced the one I'd been clutching. He shook his head mutely. I took a closer look-not that I'd memorized the one I'd taken from the decanter, but this one did seem different. And I no longer had the sense of Jonathan's presence in me, either. 'Then who's got it?'

Jonathan gave me a bleak smile. 'You already know who-' He stopped short. Someone was approaching through the rubble, walking with the fluid ease of a tiger. Even through the dust-choked haze, her clothes blazed with color.

Neon yellow.

Rahel sidestepped the wreckage of a slot machine bleeding tokens, and walked toward us. Beautiful as ever, confident and easy.

Smiling.

Her eyes were black. Jet-black, lid to lid.

'Crap, I don't have time for this. Rahel, dammit-' Jonathan said, and that was all there was time for, because she threw herself on him, turning into angles and glittering coal, a thing made of cutting edges and teeth.

The Ifrit had just found the meal of her life.

I screamed and tried to grab her, but I wasn't a Djinn any longer, even if I still had some kind of Djinn second sight; my hands went through her like a ghost. And through Jonathan, too. He'd become ghostly, trapped in her embrace. They fell and rolled over rubble, fighting and clawing. Jonathan lost his human state and turned to something brilliant and hotly dangerous as a star, but the darkness engulfed that heat.

'David!' I screamed, but I didn't really need to; he was already on the move, leaping over obstacles and landing on the back of the Ifrit. Taking her sharp-edged head-was that her head?-in his hands and twisting with vicious strength.

She didn't so much turn as just… reverse. What he was holding grew teeth, the back of her grew claws and spikes and arms. They pierced him and held him, and I felt the sharp vibration of agony go through me, too. It made me stumble and fall to my knees.

'Rahel, no!' I cried. 'Stop! God, stop!'

She couldn't. She was totally out of control.

There was a sudden odd sense of pressure changing, and my ears responded with a painfully abrupt pop. I lurched forward, falling, and caught myself as I felt David scream. It rang through the aetheric like a shattering bell, and I knew there was no time, no time, he was being torn apart by her hunger…

I had no idea if it would work, could work, but I had to try.

I held out the empty bottle-the decoy bottle-in one shaking fist and yelled out the first iteration of the ritual. 'Rahel! Be thou bound to my service!'

The Ifrit turned on me with a roar. David was bleeding. That wasn't real blood, any more than his was a real body; it was a physical representation of an aethereal energy; he could heal himself from anything so long as he had enough power left to form flesh…

But it looked so real. He was pallid, shattered, broken. The copper of his eyes was dying.

'Be thou bound to my service!' I shouted, and crawled backward as the diamond- sharp claws raked at me.

Through me. She couldn't touch me. I felt a hot spark of triumph.

'Be thou bound to-'

She lunged at me and the claws plunged deep, deeper… snagged on something.

No! No no no no no…

Not my baby.

She could destroy the life inside me, I knew that. I felt that, just as I felt David trying to get to me, determined to protect me or die in the attempt.

Rahel hesitated. Her claws were caged around Imara, holding that fragile spark. One instant's pressure would be enough.

As she hesitated, torn by whatever remnant of reason was left to her, I gasped it out. 'Be thou bound to my service!'

She went entirely still. Ice and angles, coal and glass. A three-dimensional sculpture visible only to Djinn eyes. Living? Breathing? I didn't know, couldn't tell. There was no sensation of power from the bottle I held, and no sense of connection to her. Had anybody ever tried to bind an Ifrit before? Probably not… humans couldn't see them, and Djinn wouldn't be able to do it.

I was the only one who could see them, and bind them.

'Let go of my baby,' I whispered.

The hand inside of me unclenched. Claws withdrew. It was the only part of her that moved at all.

'Rahel,' I said. 'Can you hear me?'

No answer. I shuddered and opened the black leather purse still slung around my body; there was enough padding in there for two bottles. I shoved Rahel's in, careful that it wouldn't knock against David's, and left her frozen there to fumble my way to where David was lying.

His torso was a mess of shredded meat. Blood, so much blood. His eyes had gone as brown as dying leaves, and his lips were a light shade of lilac.

She'd almost consumed him whole. I couldn't get my breath as I knelt next to him. He felt so cold to the touch-David, who was always burning warm. Like a fire going out.

I whispered his name, over and over, like a chant. I ordered him to heal himself. He didn't respond, although his eyes fastened on me like I was the only thing in the world.

His hand found mine and held it. There was no strength in him. His fingernails were the same pallid shade as