by Rachel Caine
When he pulled back, I realized that Lewis was talking. Urgently. “David, you can’t be here. They don’t know about you. You have to leave this to the Wardens now. She’s getting the best of care—”
“Quiet.” David hissed it, and when I looked up I saw the two of them exchanging a full-force stare. “Leave. You can’t do anything for her.”
Lewis’s eyes betrayed him with a flicker, and I remembered that he’d been stripped of power. Emptied. He was no more than any other mortal out there, walking around oblivious. David meant it literally. Lewis couldn’t heal me. Couldn’t do anything but hold my hand.
I couldn’t imagine how that felt, for someone like him who’d held the power of the world inside of him.
“Don’t say that,” I said, and drew David’s eyes back to me. “He’s my friend. Always.”
That eased some of the darkness in Lewis’s eyes, at least. He gave me a very small, pale smile.
“So… as a friend… how much trouble am I in, exactly?”
He started to answer, but in the next few seconds there were footsteps ringing on tile, and then the white curtain around my bed got whipped away in a shriek of metal rings, and an entire delegation was standing there. I was, I realized, in a familiar room. The same one where I’d done the French Maid lap dance for the doctor—who was standing in the corner with his arms folded across his chest, looking none too happy. Next to him was a weary, bleary Paul Giancarlo. Next to him was Marion Bearheart.
David let me go and stood up. Shield and protector. I took his hand and squeezed it lightly. “No,” I said. “Relax, David. Friends.”
I wasn’t sure of that, actually, but a battle wouldn’t do any of us any good. David settled—outwardly— but I felt the tension in his grip on my fingers.
“Friends,” Marion echoed softly. “I see. You assume a lot, Joanne.”
“I assume you wouldn’t have saved me if you didn’t think I was worth the trouble.” It was a long speech. I felt winded at the end of it.
Marion cut a look toward Paul, who slid his hands in his pants pockets and looked secretive. He didn’t volunteer a comment, so she continued. “The boy. Kevin. Do you contend that he was to blame for all of the… chaos?”
Boy, that was a loaded question. “Blame is kind of a broad term. If you’re asking, did he kill people, yes. He did. And he’s got a very powerful Djinn under his control, not to mention a couple of bottles of quarantined ones.” I had to pause for a couple of breaths. The dull ache in my back was blossoming into something hot and immediate. “He was on his way to Las Vegas. You know that?”
Marion nodded. “We know. What we need to know is how powerful is he, exactly? Can you tell us that?”
I could. I wasn’t actually sure if I should. My hesitation made Paul sigh and step forward.
“Jo, dammit, we’ve lost enough people. Not to mention a full fifteen Djinn. Don’t screw around, here. I don’t want a higher body count out of this.”
I felt a headache start pounding between my eyes. “You lost a team already, didn’t you?”
Nobody answered, and then Lewis said, quietly, “Three people. We think they’re dead.”
I sucked in a deep breath—it hurt—and nodded. “You’ll lose more. Pull them back. Track him, don’t try to take him.”
“Somebody has to try,” Marion said grimly.
“Fine. I will.” I struggled to sit up. The doctor and Lewis and David all tried to stop me, but I wasn’t having any. Screw internal damage. I had a fix for that.
“David,” I said. “Heal me.”
I’d never understood what it meant, before, when that command was given. It wasn’t just that the way opened for David to touch that deep well of potential… It was a path that moved both ways, a true and perfect union. Through him, I touched him. And something else. Something even greater.
He looked back at me with a dawning astonishment in his eyes. He reached out to take my other hand, holding both, staring down at me.
And the power that flooded through me, God, unbelievable. I knew it was my own, purified and refined through him, but the richness of it was staggering. There was pain, but more than that, there was pleasure. An amazing amount of it.
I gasped out loud, held on tight, and rode it out. When it subsided to aftershocks, I gasped, “You ever felt that before?”
His smile burned, it was so glorious. “Never.”
“Me neither.” I yanked tubes out of my hand and swung my legs over the side of the bed. People made protests. I ignored them and put my weight on my feet, felt the world go steady and sharp around me. I looked down at my hospital clothes and felt a sad regret for my lost ability to design my own wardrobe. “David? Clothes?”
Dark peachskin suit settled gently over my skin. A silk shirt, sharply tailored. On my feet, lethally beautiful shoes. I glanced up at David, who lifted a shoulder in a half-shrug.
“I learn,” he said. “What now?”
The rest of them were silent. Nobody was trying to stop us. I looked from one of them to the other— Marion, Paul, Lewis—and finally at David.
“Are you ready for this?” I asked him. For answer, he let go of my hand and stepped back, and settled an olive drab ankle-length coat around his shoulders. His copper eyes hid themselves behind human brown, and round spectacles. He looked mild and gentle, except for the strength of his smile.
“I’m ready,” he said. I turned to Paul and held up a hand. He echoed the gesture.
“Las Vegas?” he asked. “Just so I know where to send the body bags.”
“You in charge now?”
“Until things get settled. This place isn’t all that under control right now.”
“You’ll do fine,” I said. “Paul. Keep your people out of my way.”
Marion cleared her throat. “My people will help.”
“Your people will get killed,” I corrected. “This is my fight. Mine and David’s.”
“He’s just a kid,” Lewis said. He hadn’t gotten to his feet. Hadn’t done anything but sit quietly, watching the show. “Go easy.”
I looked at him in Oversight, and saw something terrible. Something I should have known all along.
Lewis was dying. The emptiness inside of him was like cancer, eating away at him; his aura was already pallid, turning necrotic. Kevin had already killed him; Lewis’s body was just still fighting the inevitable. If there was any chance at all to save him, it had to be reclaiming his powers from Kevin.
This had to be done. For him. For Jonathan. Even for Kevin himself.
It just wasn’t going to be as easy as, oh, fighting your average demigod.
“What do you need?” Paul rumbled.
I turned a smile on him, saw him warm in response, and said, “Besides a vacation? I think I need a really fast car.”
Epilogue
For those who like this kind of DIY stuff, you can make your own Heat Stroke soundtrack with these cuts (but please, support the artists, buy the CDs!):
“If Heartaches Were Nickels”………… Joe Bonamassa
“Gett Off”… Prince and the New Power Generation
“American Woman”………………………… Lenny Kravitz
“Missionary Man”………………………………… Eurythmics
“Hella Good”…………………………………………..No Doubt
“A New Day Yesterday”………………… Joe Bonamassa
“The Stroke”………………………………………… Billy Squier
“Coconut”………………………………………… Harry Nilsson
“Wild Wild West”……………………………….Escape Club
“Stranglehold”…………………………………….. Ted Nugent
“(If You Were) In My Movie”………… Suzanne Vega
“Jane’s Getting Serious”………………………… Jon Astley
“Battle Flag”…………………………………………. Pigeonhead
“Bed”………………………………………………………. Semisonic
(Because people often ask what kind of weird stuff I listen to when I’m writing.)
Peace…
Rachel Caine
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