Heat Stroke(19)

Defending my hairstyle was the least of my worries. “Rahel, what the hell is going on?” Because there was no question that trouble was brewing. No coincidence that Lewis was trying to get me, and then Rahel popped in with urgent business. I could feel the gravity, and we were right in its center.

She didn’t answer, not directly. She turned her attention back to David and shrugged. “Tell her.”

David shoved his hands in his coat pockets and leaned against the wall, considering her. “Oh, I don’t think so. If Jonathan wants to see me, let him come find me. I don’t come running to him like a kid to the principal’s office.”

“Do you imagine I’m giving you a choice?” she asked, silky as the finish on a knife. The tension already swirling in the air between them turned thick and ugly. “This is a bad place for you to fight me, David. And a very bad time, don’t you agree? He wants to see you. It’s not an invitation you refuse, you know that.”

The elevator dinged to a stop on the third floor. Doors rumbled open. Outside, a middle-aged couple waited with impatient ‘tudes. Anybody with a grain of sense would have known not to get in that elevator, given the body language of the three of us already inside, but these two were clearly self-absorbed to the point of impairment. The woman—fat, fifties, fabulously well kept—was complaining about the quality of the preserves on the breakfast tray as she petted a white rat of a dog. She crowded in. Hubby rumbled across the threshold after her.

“Excuse me,” the matron said to me, clearly expecting me to move back and give her royal personage more breathing room. She raked me with a comprehensive fashion-police inspection from head to toe, then Rahel. “Are you guests here?” With the strong implication that we were working the hotel by the hour. Rahel shot me a glance out of eyes that had moderated themselves to merely amber. Still striking, but in a human fashion-model kind of way. She showed perfect teeth when the woman glared at her, but it wasn’t a smile.

“No, ma’am,” Rahel said equably. “Hotel security. May I see your room keys?”

The matron huffed and fluffed like a winter sparrow. Hubby dug a key card from his pocket. Rahel took it in inch-and-a-half-blue-taloned hands, studied it intently, and handed it back. “Very good. Have a nice day.” For some reason, I had the strong impression that key card wouldn’t be working the next time they tried it.

Another musical ding, and the elevator doors parted like the Red Sea. The couple stalked haughtily out into the arched marble foyer. I started to get out, too, but the doors snapped shut in front of me—fast and hard, like the serrated jaws of an animal trap.

David’s eyes flared back to copper. Rahel’s flashed back to bitter, glowing yellow. There was so much power crackling in the air it stung my skin.

“Okay, can’t we just talk this over?” I asked, and then the elevator dropped. I mean, dropped. Fell straight down. I yelped and grabbed for a handhold, but there was no need; my feet stayed firmly on the carpeted floor. Neither David nor Rahel flinched, of course. I hated not being the coolest one in the room.

“Don’t make me do this,” David said, as steadily as if we weren’t in free fall. “I don’t want to fight you.”

“Wouldn’t be much of a fight,” Rahel replied, and at her sides, her fingernails clicked together in a dry, bony rhythm. They were changing color, from neon blue to neon yellow. The pantsuit morphed to match. I knew, without quite knowing why, that these were Rahel’s natural colors, that she was pulling power away from fripperies like outward manifestations to focus it inside. She was gathering her strength. “We both know it, and I have no wish to hurt you worse than you’ve already hurt yourself.”

The downward drop of the elevator slowed, but there was no way any of this was natural. Even if we’d been headed for the basement, I didn’t really believe that it was fifteen floors down from the lobby. No, we were well into Djinn geography now. Human rules applied only as a matter of politeness and convenience. The elevator was a metaphor, and we were arriving at another plane of existence. Danger land, next stop. Ladies’ lingerie and life-threatening surprises.

“I’m not taking her to him. Not yet.” David again, this time very soft, deceptively even.

Rahel grinned. “Who are you afraid for, David? Snow White, or yourself?”

“She’s not ready.”

“Then sistah girl better get her ass ready. You broke the law, David. Sooner or later, you knew you’d have to explain yourself.”

Broke the law? I blinked and dragged my eyes away from Rahel’s glittering, neon-bright menace, and saw that David had gone very still. I’d seen that look before, when he’d been faced with slavery and death—it wasn’t acceptance, it was a kind of insanely peaceful courage. “Then I’ll see him alone. There’s no reason to involve her in this.”