Chill Factor

'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.

'Tell me you want to live,' she said to him.

'I want to live,' Lewis said, and his eyes flicked from her to Kevin, behind me. I heard the kid's feet shuffle on the carpet. He was scared. The sight of Rahel had clearly given him a bad turn, and now he was starting to really feel claustrophobic. 'He doesn't die, Rahel. That's my condition.'

'Lewis, I don't know what kind of game she's playing with you, but she can't fix this,' I said. 'I asked David. He said no Djinn had the power to reverse what Jonathan had done without killing them both… except Jonathan.' It had been a constant topic of conversation for close to a week as we drove around Las Vegas, trying to figure a way to solve the problem. David had been definite about it.

'True,' Rahel purred. She turned to face me. Rahel had always had a certain feline quality, something as natural to her as breathing to me, and I felt the force of that again. A cat playing with her food, watching it run and squeak and hide. Djinn were scary people, when they had no reason to regard us with affection. 'I can't. But, you see, little flower, I'm not really me anymore. I am more than I was. Less than I will be. And I never said I would do it alone.'

It happened so subtly that I almost missed it-did miss it, at first. It was only when an empty space behind her filled that I realized she meant it literally.

She really wasn't alone. Not in the least. The gray-haired, gray-eyed man behind her, with the pale, perfect skin… I remembered him, not fondly. Ashan. Jonathan's second-in-command, with David stuck in a bottle. Chilly bastard, full of power that boiled off of him in the aetheric like heat waves.

More of them, silently appearing in the room, mixed in and around us. A girl with raven-wing hair and elaborate eye shadow, dressed in crimson. Eyes like neon signs in a peculiar shade of magenta. A little girl named Alice in a blue-and-white pinafore. A skeletally thin, tall creature so androgynous that I couldn't decide what he/she was, except a fashion fatality.

Djinn. Lots of Djinn. Free Djinn.

I focused on little Alice, who favored me with a shy smile. 'Hey, kid,' I said. 'Aren't you supposed to be somewhere?'

'Cathy isn't one of the Wardens anymore,' she said. 'She had enough. I'm free now.' Alice's blond head inclined toward Lazlo. 'She's with them now. Me too.'

The room wasn't big enough to hold all this power, all this humming, vibrating potential. I heard glass rattling in a steady, musical jitter. Too many of them, too close together; I could feel the place heating up.

Lazlo could feel it, too. He said, 'Enough. Your point is made, Rahel; there are a lot of you, and I know that you can help or hurt us, as you like. We trust you to make the right decisions, as you trust us. That's the principle of Ma'at. Balance.'

'Balance,' she agreed. 'The Free Djinn have no quarrel with you. But we will not allow one of yours to go unpunished. Or ours to go unrescued.'

Whatever second wind Lewis had gasped in was fading fast; his skin had taken on that ivory cast again, white around his mouth and eyes, and I could tell he was in pain. Maybe it was the presence of the Djinn. Maybe it was more than that, his body degrading and folding in on itself as it raided its own tissues in a search for power. He was burning himself from the inside out.

Rahel slowly crouched in front of his wheelchair and laid her golden-tipped fingers on his knees.

'Ashan,' she said. 'Grant me your strength.'

He moved to place a hand on her shoulder. Mr. Clean silently came to take Ashan's hand. The black-haired girl in red parted the humans in her way and laid fingertips on the back of Rahel's close-cropped head.

They came, one by one, moving like ghosts. Those that brushed past me made me feel sparks and chills from the contact. Each touching Rahel, or each other. Forming a network of power, in a very specific configuration.