to make me wince.
"David?" he asked. He read the answer in my eyes. "What happened?"
"Rahel. She..." My throat threatened to close up when I thought about it. "She was after Jonathan. David wouldn't let her..." I couldn't get the rest of it out. It had been a battle nobody else had seen, could see, except for me-the Ifrit would have been invisible to most human eyes.
"Where are they?"
My hand went involuntarily to the leather purse hanging slung around my body. "I put David back in his bottle. Rahel... I claimed her. Put her in the bottle Siobhan used to switch for Jonathan."
Lewis let go of me and held out his hand. "Give her to me." I started to unzip the purse, then hesitated. "Not a whole lot of time left, Jo. Do it."
I took out the bottle and gave it to him. No sensation one way or another; I hadn't felt any click of connection with Rahel, and I didn't feel any loss of it now. But Lewis did, clearly; I saw him suck in a breath and sit up straighter, and for just a second his dulled eyes took on a ferocious gleam.
"Chill Factor"
"She fed off of Jonathan?" he asked.
"Not really sure how much of it was Jonathan and how much was David, but she took a lot." I felt my stomach do that slow drop and roll again. "David- he's bad. I don't know if he's-"
"He's not dead," Lewis said. The way he said it, almost dismissively, made me give him a sharp look and want to follow it up with a sharp right hook, except it wouldn't have exactly been a fair fight. In a tussle between Lewis and a plastic grocery sack, I'd give two to one on the bag.
Chapter Twenty-six
He opened his fist, and I realized that Siobhan's blood had transferred from my hand to his; it was smeared in dull red clouds over the bottle. I squinted, because it looked as if those dull red clouds were moving. Swirling over the surface of the glass.
Being absorbed.
I felt a fast, hot surge of nausea. What's the matter, Rahel, eating Djinn wasn't enough for you? Now you're snacking on human blood, too?
"What the hell are you doing?" I snapped at him, and pulled myself back upright to step away, glaring. He considered the bottle balanced on the palm of his hand for a few seconds, then looked up at me with an unreadable expression.
"I don't think I have to do anything. Mazel tov," he said, and dropped the bottle to the carpet. Then he levered himself out of the wheelchair, lifted his foot, and stomped on the glass hard enough to shatter it.
Something pulsed through the room in a silent explosion. It was a ruffle of wind in the real world, a white wave of pure energy in the aetheric; I felt it tug hard inside me as it passed, and the Djinn-child inside of me vibrated like a tuning fork. I instinctively took another step back and covered my stomach with both hands, but the kick I felt wasn't pain; it was something like delight.
A flash of hot gold from the corner of my eye, and then a shadow, moving... shadow taking form, function, grace. Walking with a loose-limbed stride as she formed herself out of the air, out of legend and memory and power.
Rahel's hair was short now, the cornrows reduced to an elegant half-inch crop around the perfect noble sculpture of her head. It set off the line of her cheekbones, the full, lush curve of her lips.
Her eyes blazed hot, hot, hot amber.
She was wearing black, which I'd never seen her do. Black silk shirt flowing over her lean, muscular body, showing off just enough curves to make her feminine. Kind of a retro look for her, very seventies. Hip-hugging black pants, wide belt, no-nonsense kick-ass boots.
"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