by Marie Morin
A family of four had been driving the first car to hit the careening truck head on. The young mother and the toddler were dead, the father probably vegatized—the infant had come off almost unscathed ... orphaned, but uninjured.
Elise had done her best to calm the screaming infant, but she wasn't used to babies. She didn't know what to do to. Despite her best efforts, tears of helpless frustration and pity filled her own eyes as she walked and bounced the baby, cuddled it, patted its back ... nothing seemed to work and she knew it was because the baby wanted its mother.
She'd moved away from the highway, on the other side of the van from the traffic, hoping the quieter spot might help her to calm the baby. Raheem appeared abruptly and she looked up at him helplessly.
“I can't get her to stop crying,” she said, her chin wobbling.
Raheem studied her a long moment and reached for the baby, bouncing it above his head. Unnerved, Elise moved closer, fearing he'd drop it. To her amazement, the baby stopped crying, staring at Raheem in open mouthed wonder ... hiccoughing, but too frightened of him, or too stunned, to cry. Settling the baby in the crook of his arm, he pointed a finger, moving it in a tiny circle. Sparkles of dancing lights appeared, rainbow colored, swirling. The baby gaped at the swirl of light and color, fascinated. After a moment, she offered up a coo of appreciation.
Elise was as fascinated as the baby ... though not with the light show. She would never, in her wildest imaginings, have thought that Raheem could be so gentle, so ... good with a baby.
For the first time, she wondered if he had a woman, and children, of his own.
“You have children?” she asked tentatively.
He glanced at her, surprise evident in his features, then frowned. “No."
“But ... how did you do that? She stopped crying the minute you took her."
His eyes gleamed with amusement. “Women find me irresistible."
Elise laughed. “They must."
He looked past her, as if he saw, or heard something she hadn't. Handing the child back to her, he vanished.
Elise looked around in time to see a police woman rounding the end of the van. “Your partner needs you. I'll take the baby. We're going to carry her down to family and children services until we can locate relatives ... could be awhile. They were from out of town."
Elise handed the baby over, watching with a mixture of guilt, relief and sadness as the police woman walked away with the confused baby.
“This is no work for women."
Elise glanced sharply toward the sound of his voice, not particularly surprised to see that Raheem had reappeared.
“It's no work for anyone. Someone has to be willing to help, though."
His eyes narrowed. “It is easier for some than others. You are too empathetic to the pain of others."
“I wouldn't want to be lying beside the road dying and have someone who didn't care helping me."
He cocked his head to one side, studying her. “You can not undo the past."
Elise's head snapped around. “No....” A thought occurred to her quite suddenly, however. “You could. Couldn't you? Take me back so that we could get here more quickly? The baby's mother ... she died before we reached the scene. If we'd been here sooner...."
Raheem's lips tightened as he studied the pleading in her eyes. In all the time that he had been guardian of the gate, he had never once questioned whether it would be wise, or right, to grant a wish demanded. It had certainly never occurred to him to warn the unwary. He found, however, that he could not simply do it without warning her. “What you ask is ... impossible. I can not grant it."
Elise stared at him in stunned dismay, but something in his eyes told her he was lying to her. “Can't? Or won't?"
“You can not change the past,” Raheem said angrily.
“Why? If I had another chance...."
“It would be the same. It was meant to be or it would not have happened."
Elise's lips tightened. “I don't believe in manifest destiny! We have choices. There wouldn't be any point to even try if nothing we did made any difference."
“You do not understand your own world—it is balanced, carefully maintained balance. When something is taken from here, then something must be taken there, or there. Balance must be regained."
“You've asked me what I wanted, over and over. I made a wish!” Elise said angrily.
Raheem shook his head. “It is one that will bring you regret."
Before Elise could say anything else, she found herself in the EMT van once more. In surprise, she looked over at her partner, who was driving like a madman, whipping around cars, weaving in and out between stopped vehicles.
“Where are we headed?"
Alan, her partner, threw a frowning glance at her. “The crash on the freeway."
Elise gulped, her leaping in her chest. “I meant, what route?"
“The Fowler exit's closest."
“They said it was near the Busch Boulevard exit. Why don't we cut across to Busch? The traffic on the interstate is bound to be backed up."
He frowned, but shrugged. “You might be right."
The scene looked different approaching it from the opposite direction. The moment Alan parked the van, she was out the door and racing to the back to help with the equipment. “This car!” she shouted when Alan turned toward the car wedged beneath the tractor trailer. “I think I hear a baby."
They ran to the car as fast as they could carrying the heavy cases of equipment and medical supplies, but when they arrived at the car, Elise came to an abrupt halt. The car was crushed in on both sides. It hadn't been like this before. She remembered. The driver's side had been crushed in, but the passenger side hadn't had nearly so much damage. With an effort, she forced herself on, reaching the car as Alan leaned through the broken window to check the driver, then shown his flashlight around the rest of the car. He shook his head. “I think we're wasting our time here. Looks like they're all dead."
Elise stared at him. His voice was barely audible, as if he were yelling at her from a great distance. “They can't all be dead!"
Numbly, she watched as he moved around the car, checking each for any sign of a pulse.
“Over here!” someone shouted. “We've got some people over here."
Elise turned as Alan rushed away. The policeman was standing beside the car the two teenage girls had been driving.
Elise stared after him. “This isn't right. They died. The baby lived. Raheem! Put it back the way it was!"
He appeared beside her. “You choose the baby?"
Elise stared at him. “It's not my choice!"
“It is not."
Elise swung the heavy case at him. It missed him, but the momentum of her swing carried her off balance. She should have fallen. Surprisingly enough, she didn't. Raheem righted her, steadied her. “Go away!” Elise said angrily. “Just get out of my life!"
Chapter Six
If Elise had been in any frame of mind to think, she would have realized that she was not in the best of conditions for driving. Numbness had stolen over her while she'd worked with Alan to stabilize the two girls for transport. Both were in critical condition, but expected to pull through Alan had told her when she'd clocked out. She'd nodded.
She was glad ... happy for their families.
She couldn't get the baby's tiny face out of her head, though.
She'd held it, comforted it.
One life was not, should not be, more important than another.
She had helped to save the lives of the girls. She should feel euphoric. If she had not gotten her wish—if she had simply done her job and ignored the rest—
She was fortunate that it was late and the traffic light. She was not paying as much attention to her driving as she should have.
Raheem was sitting on the couch when she came in the front door. She stared at him a long moment, then dropped her purse on the floor and went into the bathroom. Filling the tub with hot water, she turned on
the jets, disrobed and climbed in. The hot, pounding water eased the tension from her. After a few minutes, she covered her face with her hands and cried until she couldn't cry any more.
Exhausted, she climbed out of the tub with an effort, dried off and dropped the towel on the floor. It took an effort to walk from the bathroom to the bed and climb in. She didn't bother to turn out the lights. She wasn't tired enough to sleep ... or, more precisely, she wasn't weary. She was heartsick.
Sitting in the middle of the bed, she wrapped her arms around her knees and stared at nothing in particular, willing her mind to go blank so that she didn't have to remember, or think.
She was aware of Raheem, but she ignored him.
Maybe, she thought, he'll get tired of being ignored and go away.
No such luck!
It didn't take Raheem long at all to grow tired of being ignored. He began to pace back and forth beside the bed. “You must cease this!” he growled finally.
Elise looked up at him dully. “I'm not doing anything."
“Exactly!” He'd stopped directly beside her, his legs spread, his balled fists planted on his hips.
She frowned at him, feeling the first stirrings of emotion once more. She didn't particularly want to feel anything and it made her angry that Raheem seemed determined to make her feel. “Go away!"
“You are being childish!"
Elise glared at him, the anger rushing through her like a tidal wave of acid. “Why did you do it? She was a precious little baby. How could you have done that after you'd held her? Played with her?"
To her surprise something curiously akin to pain flickered in his eyes. “I warned you,” he said angrily.
“But you didn't have to twist it like that! I wanted to help them, not make it even worse!"
He caught her upper arms in a bruising grip, dragging her toward him until she was on her knees on the edge of the bed, facing him. “That was not my doing!"
“You made it happen differently!” Elise yelled at him.
“I allowed the past to replay itself. I warned you! There is always balance! If you change something, everything changes!"
Elise stared at him a long moment, feeling the fight go out of her as everything she'd done differently played through her mind. It didn't seem logical, when she was not even involved in the wreck itself, that anything she might have done could've changed anything, but then, she'd intended to change everything, hadn't she? What had made her stupid enough to think that she could outsmart nature, or whatever force it was that kept the world and everything in it in balance? “It was my fault, then."
He studied her a long moment, looking as if he was tempted to shake her until her teeth rattled. Instead, he pulled her roughly against his chest. Threading his fingers through her hair, he tugged her head back and bent to cover her mouth with his own in a kiss that was both angry and possessive.
Elise stiffened at the punishing assault, but the sensations that rushed through her were anything but unwelcome. He had pinned her arms to her sides and she could do nothing but wrap them tightly around his waist, opening her mouth to the marauding invasion of his tongue.
He released her so abruptly, she fell backwards on the bed, staring up at him with a mixture of surprise and desire as pain and disappointment slowly took their place. He was breathing raggedly, molten desire in his eyes, but confusion, as well.
The urge to cry washed through her again. Her eyes filled with tears that cut trails along her cheeks.
Raheem frowned. “Woman! Do not weep at me!” He scrubbed a shaking hand over his face. “This can not be. I am a djinn. I can not be as you are without being mortal, as well—to feel all that a human feels is to be human."
Nothing he said made any sense to her beyond the fact that he had made it clear he would not offer her comfort. She shook her head slowly, sniffed, mopped the tears from her cheeks with her hand. “I just ... don't want to think about what happened. I can't stop thinking about the baby, can't put her little face out of my mind."
Abruptly, he bent toward her, scooping her up, pulling her roughly against his chest and wrapping his arms around her. Elise buried her face against his chest, sliding her arms around his waist gratefully. All she'd really wanted was to be comforted. “I wish I could just forget all of it,” she mumbled, bursting into fresh tears.
Raheem pulled slightly away from her, tugged her chin up so that she was looking up at him. After a moment, he brushed his fingers lightly over her face. “As you wish, myska."
Elise blinked, found her eyes were filled with tears and blinked again. Finally, Raheem's face came into focus. “What does myska mean?"
He released her abruptly, frowning. “It is what you call ... pesky. Like the fly."
A faint smile curled Elise's lips. “Liar."
Raheem glared at her for a long moment and finally folded his arms and vanished.
Elise glanced around the room and frowned. She felt strangely disoriented and realized she couldn't remember how she'd come to be in Raheem's arms. More disturbingly, she had no idea why she'd been crying.
She was in bed. Maybe she'd fallen asleep and had a bad dream?
Shaking it off, she got up and dressed, then went into the kitchen to look for something to eat. She was starving, as if she hadn't eaten all day.
She knew she had. Vaguely, she remembered that she and Alan had pulled into a fast food joint between a run that had proven to be a false alarm and the trip to the nursing home.
Dismissing it, she puzzled instead over the incident with Raheem and the things he'd said ... and not said.
He'd called her myska. She might not know his language or the precise meaning of the word, but she was no fool. The meaning behind it had been crystal clear. It had been an endearment. The question was, what kind?
He'd made it clear he considered the djinn far superior to mortals. Did that mean it had been an affectionate term for ... well, like a pet? Or a child? Or a woman he desired?
Plainly, he desired her and just as evidently the consequences of yielding to it were too dire for him to consider it. He'd said that to feel human was to be human. Had he meant literally? Or figuratively speaking?
She thought it over and finally came to the conclusion that he'd meant it literally. Nothing else made sense. He'd alluded to the ‘evil that would befall’ before, which meant, true or not, he believed that being with her as a man would make him one, that he would no longer be the djinn, no longer be immortal. He would be trapped in her world, powerless.
She felt a little sick at that thought. It was possible, of course, that the warnings of dire consequences were like a lot of the warnings parents gave children—exaggerated.
What if it wasn't, though? What if, by continuing to tease and torment him until he yielded, she was enticing him to give up everything that he was? Wouldn't he hate her? Could she live with herself, for that matter? In essence, she would be luring him to his death. As a mortal, he would, at least eventually, die.
She felt nauseated at the thought. She was only twenty five. Ordinarily, she probably wouldn't have given a thought to the dark future that awaited her. John's death had changed that, torn away the rosy, youthful fantasy of immortality. It had also forced her to see that immortality wasn't something she really wanted. She was in no hurry for death. She hoped to have a long life, but the thought of going on forever, of struggling and suffering endlessly, was worse even than the thought of dying.
She knew, even though she couldn't completely grasp what his world was like, that Raheem, nor any of his kind, experienced pain, suffering, sickness—any more than they experienced death.
There could be no such thing as casual sex between them, nor physical comfort, or even something more meaningful. It would be just as reprehensible for her to entice him from his world for love as for nothing more than a whim ... worse, really.
She was going to have to figure out how to make him go back before one of them did something really stupid and, just as impor
tantly, she had to protect herself from becoming any more attached to him than she was already.
There was no sense in lying to herself and pretending she wasn't becoming more attached than she had any business doing. That wouldn't protect her from being hurt when he left. She had to focus on someone else, someone from her own world.
* * * *
“Why don't we order?” For lack of a better distraction, Elise had decided to try once more with Lonnie. She'd been a little nervous about going out with him again, not because of Lonnie, but because Raheem had joined them the last time.
Raheem had been gone for days, though.
After spending the first fifteen minutes darting glances around, certain he would appear at any moment, she dismissed her fears and concentrated on Lonnie.
He was an ideal candidate as a distraction, actually. Physically, he appealed to her. On an emotional level, he left her cold. She wasn't even remotely likely to come away from the encounter emotionally damaged, but he would certainly do as a lover.
It wasn't in her nature to simply decide to engage in a purely physical relationship. She was as much an ‘old fashioned girl’ who believed in hearth, home and family, as she was the feminist who believed she had every right to a career to enrich her life and that she was just as capable of making logical decisions as any man.
She realized, however, that she was not immune to physical need. She desired Raheem. It was as simple, and as complicated, as that. If he'd not been djinn, she would have taken a chance with a physical relationship, hoping an emotional commitment would follow. He wasn't and she couldn't, but she had to get the fire out of her blood somehow or she wasn't going to be able to resist trying to entice Raheem.
For both their sakes she needed a serious distraction.
Lonnie would do. He was certainly more than willing to have a casual fling with her.
Lonnie, she saw when he didn't answer, was giving the waitress a once over that had her all aflutter. Irritated, Elise ordered a mixed drink, thinking he might at least be gentleman enough to pretend to give her his undivided attention while they were on a date. Men like Lonnie, however, always on the prowl, never considered how incredibly rude such behavior was, or, if they did, just didn't care.