Cape Storm Page 0,104

you think, princess?"

"Too boring." She wasn't even looking at me; she pulled free of Bad Bob and walked a slow circle around Rahel, inspecting her Miss America impersonation. "Make her work for it."

"Hmmmm. There's an idea. Two birds and one very big stone." Bad Bob slammed the book closed and put it under his arm. "All right, then. Let's see what you can do, my child. Impress me."

Moira sat down on a handy boulder, open wine bottle in both hands on her lap, and tossed glossy red hair back over her shoulders. "Rahel," she said. "I want you to break Joanne Baldwin's right leg in two. Use your hands. Do it now." She knew the rules of commanding a Djinn - be specific about intent, method, and time frame. And I could see that they'd had plenty of practice with Rahel - she hadn't gained that traumatized fury without cause.

"Do it slowly," Moira said. "Make her feel every second of it." Rahel's eyes focused on me, and she began walking across the stones toward where I sat.

Not a hell of a lot I could do to stop her; if I tried to resist, my other leg was sure to be crushed, and maybe even pulled off by this tentacle thing Bad Bob was using for a tether.

She still looked ridiculous in her getup, but I didn't let that fool me for a second. I'd seen the Djinn in the grip of truly evil people, and they were no more to be reasoned with than the blade of a knife.

I looked past Rahel at Moira. "I guess you hate me for being the daughter he never had.

Daddy didn't trust you, did he? That's why he came after me in the first place. Because you weren't measuring up. Either that, or he wanted to screw me. Your choice." Bad Bob's face went very still, and I knew I'd guessed right.

So did Moira. She surged to her feet. "Rahel! When I tell you, you're going to kill that bitch for me!"

One rule of commanding an embottled Djinn: Never give your orders angry. Moira had just forgotten to explicitly frame her order as to whom to kill. Bitch could apply to, oh, more than one of us standing here, and unless she caught that error later on, Moira was in for a nasty surprise.

I saw the light flare gold in Rahel's eyes, and I took a deep breath. Wait, I mouthed. The desire to strike was almost primal in her, and she knew she was close, so close to having the freedom to exact her revenge.

I knew I could push that button anytime I wanted to - but first, I had to endure a little more. Moira would think of her mistake if I gave her the time.

I needed to keep her engaged.

Rahel bent down and put her hands on my outstretched right leg, the nontentacled one.

Her opera gloves felt cool and smooth against my skin. "She did say to do this slowly," she said, and I let out a slow breath, then nodded. Rahel was telling me, without wasting words, that she had identified the gaps in Moira's original order. To a Djinn, the word slowly meant something entirely different than it did to a human. Their time-scales were vast, and that instruction was not nearly as specific as Moira might have believed it was.

Now it was up to us to hide that fact.

Rahel froze, with her hands on my leg. I waited. I didn't feel anything - no increase in pressure, no pain, nothing. She'd taken the freedom Moira's instructions offered to simply stretch this out so long that it might take a lifetime for her grip to increase its force enough to crack a bone, much less break it.

"Nice," I murmured, and got a brief, cold parting of her lips. Her teeth were filed to points. "Don't panic, whatever I do."

Rahel raised one arched eyebrow, and I began to struggle against her grip, panting - selling the idea that she was hurting me, when in fact she was doing nothing but pinning my right leg to the stone.

As performances go, this one probably was a bit over the top even for high school melodrama, but Moira lapped it up like cream. I tossed in some begging and bargaining. She loved it. Pretty girl, but either Bad Bob's genetics or Bad Bob's black tattoo had rendered her broken and sick. I remembered someone else like her - Kevin's stepmother, Yvette Prentiss. The