Windfall Page 0,62

and not nearly enough, believe me. I need you. Get your ass down here as soon as you can. Get Rahel to fly you in express if you can."

"No, I'll drive. I'll send Rahel to you. At least she can keep you out of trouble until I can get there."

Curious, that Rahel evidently hadn't informed Lewis about her conversation with me, and the ass-kicking she'd received from Ashan. But then he was a mere mortal, and she was a Djinn, and hey, even the nicest of them didn't exactly regard us as equals. He wasn't her master, and she wasn't anyone's slave.

"Jo?" he asked. I felt a rush of power and heard a quiet pop of noise, like a champagne cork letting go. When I looked up, Rahel was standing on the other side of the bed. Unsmiling. Watching me with lambent gold-flaring eyes, and the kind of clinical interest you might see in your better class of death row guards.

"How long will it take you to get here?" I asked.

"Two hours," he said. "Watch your ass. It hasn't been all happy puppies around here, either." Click. He was gone.

I hung up and let the phone slide down to the bedspread, cautiously stood up, and faced the Djinn, who crossed her arms and stood hipshot and elegantly neon, looking me over. Her head tilted to one side, cornrows rustling like silk.

"Huh," she said. "Ashan is slipping. I thought he'd hurt you much worse than this."

I glared at her. "If he shows up again, are you going to defend me?"

"No."

"How about Jonathan? Would you keep him off of me?"

"Don't be ridiculous."

"Right. So you're just here to observe while they beat the crap out of me. Hey, thanks for your help."

"I am doing a favor for Lewis. That doesn't mean that I am doing you a favor."

She inspected her nails, and must have decided they weren't sharp enough; the tips glinted knife-bright. Her eyes, flicking to me, were almost as unsettling.

"For someone in your position, you show remarkably little gratitude."

"Gratitude for what? For provoking a fight and then bugging out and leaving me to face Ashan?" I felt a late-breaking surge of panic and my old friend, anger. "Here's a tip: Help me less. It's better for everybody."

"I don't come here at your request," she pointed out, and made herself at home on my bed, testing the mattress. "Go on about your business, Snow White. I need no watching. You're the one who requires nursemaids. However, I will tell you that if Lewis needs me, I will drop you without hesitation. Do you understand?"

I understood, all right. There really wasn't much I could do to stop her if she decided to hang around in my bedroom trying on my clothes and generally making a pest of herself, or if she decided to bug out in the middle of a fight. She was not the most supportive support I'd ever had.

I gathered the tattered shreds of my dignity closer around me, and decided that I really was kind of hungry, after all, and staring at Eamon and Sarah would be better than enduring the sardonic, unearthly stare of a Djinn for a couple of hours.

"Don't let anything happen to David," I warned her, and glanced toward the nightstand.

Her face went very still. "Oh, believe me," she said, "I will not."

I went out to eat some dinner off the new plates.

Sarah hadn't waited for me; she and Eamon were already sitting at the table, facing each other, with candles glowing between them. She'd switched off the overhead lights, and it was like a little island of romance in a sea of darkness. Very sweet.

I bumped into a corner of the couch, cursed, and ruined the mood. Sarah gave me a long-suffering look and paused, fork halfway to her perfectly rouged lips, as I sank into a chair next to Eamon and unfolded my napkin. It was in some origamilike complication of a swan. Another Martha Stewart-esque thing that few working mortals had the time to learn how to do.

The wine was pleasantly cool and tart, and the salad crisp, and she'd whipped up some kind of vinaigrette that for the life of me I hadn't realized could come out of a noncommercial kitchen. Sarah should have become a chef, not a trophy wife.

"Were you talking to David?" Sarah