Heat Stroke(54)

She arched against him like he was a pole and she was the stripper. “How about a little negotiating session now?”

This time, I did find my voice. “Ah, excuse me?”

She put her hands in his pockets, pulling him groin to groin for a vertical lapdance. He was trying to step away, but not really putting any effort into it. More of the token I’m-a-nice-guy-but-I-can-be-persuaded sort of resistance. I knew, because I’d done the female version of it often enough. And hey, once with Lewis.

David hadn’t liked her. Not at all. And I was more than willing to go with David’s instincts, especially when mine were screaming bloody murder.

“Not now,” Lewis said absently to me. Which was not quite an order, but had the definite aroma of one. And I didn’t like that at all.

“Hey!” This time I put some lung power into it. “Lewis! Use the big brain. What the hell does she want? And if you think that for one minute I’m going to work for this cut-rate road show temptress…”

Her hand came out of Lewis’s pocket.

She was holding the small perfume vial in her hand, and a small plastic stopper. My bottle. I felt a lurch, as if gravity was shifting, and felt a sickening sense of despair close over me. Oh God…

Lewis pulled free and shoved her back. His eyes went wide. He reached out for the perfume bottle, grabbed hold of her wrist…

… and the kid, who’d been examining a heavy glass bowl, lunged forward and hit him in the head with it. Lewis staggered and went to his hands and knees. The kid—tall, gawky, pale, his knuckles white around the edges of the leaded glass—raised it for another blow.

“Stop!” I yelled, and reached out to give him the most powerful whammy that I still had at my command.

“No, you stop. Right there.” Yvette’s cool, southern-smoothed voice. I jerked to a halt. Utterly, completely out of control. No, in her control. She was holding my bottle, and that meant she was holding me, too. Body and soul.

“Now, is that really necessary?” Patrick asked weakly, and waved at the boy and Lewis. “You have what you want. There’s no need for all this violence—”

“Shut up, Patrick,” Yvette snapped. Patrick winced and turned away, shoulders hunched. He raised his hands in surrender.

Lewis was still trying to get to her, crawling slowly now, blood dripping out of his hairline to spatter the flesh-pale carpet. His voice was weak and deep in his throat. “Jo, go, get out—”

“You. Do not move,” Yvette said, precisely. Nailing me in place as the boy with the glass bowl advanced again, skittishly, aiming for another swing at Lewis’s head. “Kevin. Do it.”

“No!” She hadn’t made me stop talking, just moving. I screamed it as the boy lifted the heavy bowl. I reached desperately for power…

But Lewis got there first.

The bowl shattered into sharp-edged, spinning pieces in the kid’s hands. He cursed and dropped it, shaking cuts; more blood flew out at velocity to spray the walls.

He kicked Lewis in the head, taking his anger out on the nearest and most helpless target. Lewis went down. Stayed down. I couldn’t see him from where I was, pinned in place by Yvette’s merciless command.

Patrick rounded on them, shouting, “That’s enough! No more!”

The boy stopped, panting. His face was corpse-pale, shining with sweat.

“You planning on getting righteous on me now?” Yvette asked. If she was perturbed that Patrick had just ordered her teen psycho around, she didn’t let it show. “Where are you planning to get your next meal for your beloved Sara? You going to ask him for it?”

“Just—stop.” Patrick swallowed hard, fists clenched. “Not in my house. I’ll not allow this.”

“But you’d allow this.” Yvette pulled a frosted glass bottle from a purse she’d dropped in the corner. Rattled it suggestively. Popped the rubber cap on the top.

A Djinn formed. A man, gorgeous, a study in gold and bronze. He looked utterly delicious, except for the stark terror in his eyes. He started to back away, but she froze him in place with a whispered command, and walked all around him, trailing her fingers over his gleaming skin.

I remembered something David had said. They had appetites in common. Well, I knew Bad Bob Biringanine’s appetites well enough to be sickened by that.

Patrick went sickly pale and protested, “Don’t—” but it was too late.

The black shadow of the Ifrit slid around the kitchen door, flowed over carpet.

“I see she’s hungry,” Yvette said, and moved out of the way. “Want to lecture me about morality now, Patrick?”