Light spilled out the open door of the one at the end.
I walked down the expensively carpeted last mile, passing reproductions of old masters, framed documents, alcoves with statues. At the end of the hall I turned left and saw the name on the door.
EAMON DRAKE.
The office was a triangle of glass, and his desk sat at the pointy end, sleek and black and empty of anything but a blotter, a penholder, and a single sheet of white paper. Very minimalist.
Sarah was lying on the black leather couch close to the left-hand wall. She was awake, but clearly not fully conscious; she was still wearing the bathrobe, and he hadn’t bothered to fully close it. At least, I thought with a wave of sickness, he hadn’t fully openedit. That was a little comfort.
Eamon was sitting on the arm of the couch, watching me. There was a gun in his hand.
It was pointed straight at Sarah’s head.
“Let’s not waste time,” he said. “This storm could make our little, petty differences seem mild. Hand it over and we’re finished, thanks, ta, bye.”
I opened my purse and took out the lipstick case I’d taken from Shirl’s demon-infected Warden friend. I flipped it open to show him the bottle.
“Open it and make him appear,” Eamon said. “I hope you’ll forgive me if I say that I don’t want a free sample of Eternity for Men instead of what we agreed on.”
I took the small perfume sample bottle out, unstopped it, and told the Djinn to appear. He obliged, not that he had much choice; he came out as a youngish-looking guy, dark-haired, with eyes the color of violets. Blank expression. I felt a resonance of connection, but nothing deep and certainly nothing strong. Djinn were, of course, powerful, but on a scale of one to ten, he was maybe a three.
“Back in the bottle,” I told him, and he misted and vanished. I put the stopper back in and raised my eyebrows at Eamon. “Satisfied?”
He cocked his head, staring at me with those deceptively soft, innocent eyes.
Oh, he was a clever one. He knew there was something wrong.
“I’m not a bad judge of people,” he said. “And this is too easy, love. You’re taking this too meekly.”
“What do you want me to do? Scream? Cry? Get my sister killed?” I clenched my teeth and felt jaw muscles flutter as I tried to breathe through the surge of helpless fury. “ Take the fucking bottle, Eamon.Otherwise we’re all going to die in here.”
He caressed Sarah’s hair with the barrel of the gun. “Threats don’t serve you.”
“It’s not a threat, you idiot! Look out there! We’re in a goddamn Cuisinart if these windows go!”
He spared a glance for the storm, nodded, and held out his hand. Long, graceful fingers, well-manicured. He looked like a surgeon, a concert pianist, something brilliant and precise.
“Throw it,” he said.
I pitched the bottle to him, underhanded. He plucked it effortlessly out of the air, and for a second I saw the awe in his eyes. He had what he wanted.
Now was the moment of risk, the moment when everything could go to hell. All he had to do was pull the trigger.
He looked at me, smiled, and thumbed the stopper out of the bottle. It rolled away, onto the carpet, and the Djinn misted out again. Subtly different, this time. Paler skin, eyes still violet but hair turning reddish, and cut in a longer style that made him look younger and prettier.
“Pity he isn’t female,” Eamon said critically. “What’s your name?”
“Valentine.”
“Valentine, can you keep these windows from breaking?”
The Djinn nodded. I opened my mouth to warn Eamon he was making a mistake phrasing it as a question, but he didn’t need me to tell him that.
“Keep the windows from breaking,” Eamon said, and the order clicked in. The glass stopped rattling. Outside, the storm continued to howl, but we were about as safe as it was possible to be. From broken glass, at least.
Eamon let out his breath in a trembling sigh, and I saw the hot spark in his eyes.
“You’re only human,” I told him. “You don’t have the reserves of power to fund him for anything more powerful than that. Don’t be stupid.”
“Oh, I’m not interested in the world, I assure you. One person at a time is my motto.” He gave me another fevered, glittering smile. “You kept your bargain.”
“Yes,” I said. “I did.”
“You know, I’m sorry I’m going to have to do this. Valentine, kill—”
“David,” I said, “come out.”
That was all it took.
A black blur that Eamon couldn’t see, and suddenly Valentine was falling, screaming, ripping at the black shadow that formed over and around him. It was a nightmare to watch. David had changed into something more horrible than I could stand to see, and something that even my eyes wouldn’t properly focus… I caught hints of sharp edges and teeth and claws, of insectile thrashing limbs. I stumbled off to the side, well away from them, until my hip banged painfully into Eamon’s desk.
Eamon was thrown. “Valentine! Kill her!”
Valentine wasn’t in any shape to obey commands. He was down flat on his face, screaming, and the Ifrit’s claws were ripping him apart into mist.
Killing him.
Devouring him.
Eamon hadn’t expected this, and for a long moment he was frozen, staring at his Djinn dying on the floor, bottle still held useless in his hand.
I called lightning and zapped him. Not fatally, because I didn’t have it in me, but he screamed and jerked and slid bonelessly off the arm of the couch into a twisted pile on the carpet.
The bottle rolled free. The gun bounced under the couch.
The Ifrit finished its meal and began its transformation, taking on weight and shape and human form.
A trembling, naked human form.
David fell to his hands and knees, gagging, gasping, and collapsed on his side, his back to me. I stared at the beautiful long slide of his back and wanted so badly to run to him and stroke his hair, cover him in kisses, and hold him close and swear that I’d never let this happen again, never…
He turned his head and looked at me, and what was in his eyes burned me to ash.
Nobody, human or Djinn, should live with that kind of guilt and horror. That much longing.
“Let me go,” he whispered. “I love you, but please, you have to let me go.”
I knew he was right. And it was the only time possible I had left to do it.
I hardly felt the bottle shatter as I slammed it against the desktop. Even the slashes in my hand hardly registered. That kind of pain was nothing, it was insignificant against the bonfire burning in my soul.
I felt him leave me, a sudden cutting of the cord, an irrevocable loss that left me empty inside.
He stood up, clothing himself as he moved. Faded, loose khaki pants. A well-worn blue shirt. The olive drab coat swirling around him, brushing the tops of his boots.
He was warmth and fire and everything I had ever wanted in my life.
He fitted his large, square hands around my shoulders, slid them silently up to my face, and pulled me into a kiss. His breath shuddered into my mouth, and I felt his whole body trembling.
“I knew it had to be this way,” he whispered. “I’m so sorry, Jo. I’m so—I can’t stay in this form for long. I have to go.”
“Go,” I said. “I’ll be fine.”
One last kiss, this one fierce and devouring, and in the middle of it he turned to mist and faded away.
I cried out and lurched forward, reaching with a bloody hand for nothing.
At the other end of the room, a window blew out in a silver spray of glass, and buried shrapnel in the wall above the couch.
I gasped and lunged forward, nearly tripping over Eamon, who was moving weakly, and grabbed Sarah to pull her upright. She couldn’t walk, but she mumbled, something about Eamon; I slung her arm across my shoulder and half walked, half dragged her to the door.
As we reached the safety of the hall, another window let loose with the sound of a bomb exploding. Oh God.The whole building was shaking.