Ill Wind Page 0,55

lying around waiting to be rubbed for three wishes. But real Djinn don't work that way. Real Djinn are numbered, assigned, and accounted for like precious jewels, and their service is eternal.

David was looking out the window at the rolling pastoral countryside, sparsely dotted with cows and neat-rowed fields. He didn't turn his head. "You know that's one of the few questions I had to answer honestly, since you asked it three times. No. I don't have a master."

Djinn could lie about most anything except who they were and who they served-but you had to ask them directly, and be really focused, because they were also Zen masters of the obscure; and weren't afraid of resorting to trickery to misdirect the questioner. But David's answer didn't seem obscure; it seemed simple and to the point. He was that impossible dream, the free-range Djinn. Which meant-no, I didn't want to think about what it meant. Far too tempting. Far too easy.

He turned his head then, and he wasn't troubling to disguise his eyes anymore; they were bright copper, beautiful beyond words, scary beyond measure. His human disguise, I saw now, had been pretty minimal; just a muting of his eyes and hair, an inward turning of his powerful aura.

"You hid in Oversight," I said, instead of what I was really thinking. Djinn weren't the only ones good at avoiding questions. "How'd you do that?"

"It's different when we're free. We come into the full range of our abilities only when we're working for a master. Outside of that, we just have camouflage and some small talents, hardly more than what you have yourself." This from a guy who could start cars with his finger and swim through solid earth like water. But then, I realized, those were things a properly trained Fire Warden or Earth Warden could do. So maybe he wasn't dishing crap after all. "I appear as your subconscious shapes me."

"Human?"

"Mostly. I can be hurt."

"Killed?"

He shook his head. "Maybe. It's been a long time since I've been free. I don't know. But hurt, yes."

"And if I go into Oversight now-"

"You'll see me as human." He shrugged. "Not for your benefit, though. That's just how we look when we're free."

It made sense, actually. Djinn, like any living thing, would have developed the ability to hide themselves from predators. In a very real sense, that's what magic-wielding humans are to them-predators, waiting to pounce and devour. Or at least to enslave. It was an extremely interesting and unsettling thought, because it meant that there might be more than just David out there. A lot more. Hiding in plain sight. Hoping nobody with the right set of facts twigged to their true identity, because it would be so easy to ...

I wrenched myself away from temptation. Again.

"You've been following me," I accused. I took my foot off the gas and let the Ranger coast for a while, because we were coming up on one of those smalltown speed-trap zones. Not a big town, Eliza Springs. Not much of a town at all. A speed limit of thirty miles an hour smelled like the ubiquitous traveler tax.

David didn't bother to answer.

"Somebody sent you," I continued. "Maybe not your master, okay, maybe that's true. But somebody."

More silence. Then again, I wasn't asking a direct question. If I were magically compelled to answer questions, I'd resent it like hell, so I kept it conversational and declamatory. "You caused that spinout."

His shoulders tensed, just a bit. He relaxed them. No answer.

"I felt the car tip. I was going to roll over."

"Yes."

"And you stopped it." No answer. It was time for a little force. "Why?"

"Seemed like a good idea at the time." His warm-metal eyes flicked toward me, then away.

I reminded myself that even though he had to answer questions, he wasn't under any obligation to tell the truth, not unless I asked him the same question a ritual three times, and even then only if it fell within certain guidelines. I didn't want to do that, because he also wasn't under any obligation not to disappear at the next blink of an eye. This was a little bit like dealing with a skittish, beautiful wild thing . . . too much heavy-handed crashing around and he'd run.

"You were going to let me crash and burn." I made it a statement. "Why save me?"