"You need to rest," David said, without emphasis. Careful about it.
I cranked the ignition. Nothing happened.
"I mean it," he said. "One night, Jo. One night, you sleep, we continue."
I kept cranking for a solid minute, then stopped and sat back in the leather seat, staring out at the panoramic view.
"I don't like being manipulated," I said.
"I know," David said. "But you're not leaving me much choice. I won't let you kill yourself."
The unspoken again vibrated in the air between us.
I sighed. I didn't want to fight, I didn't have the energy for it. And my food was calling.
"Fine," I said. "One night."
Mona's engine vibrated to life the instant I turned the key. I turned her wheels into the Desert Inn parking lot. My body was already craving a hot shower and a soft bed, now that I'd let the thought sink in.
One night, I promised myself.
Yeah, myself sneered back. Nothing can happen in just one night, right?
Right.
###
The room rate would have been reasonable for, say, a decent Hilton featuring crisp white sheets, turn-down service and complimentary guest robes. It was a little high for a sagging mattress, yellowing bedding, indoor-outdoor carpet, and a bathroom decorated in early Ugh, What The Hell Is That?
Still looked good to me.
David and I sat on either side of the bed; he ate slowly, watching me wolf down my burger and fries with every sign of fascinated amusement. After a while, he disposed of the remains of his meal — he'd only eaten a couple of bites, just for taste, I suspected — and took off his long dark-green coat. He tossed it over the back of the unhappy-looking armchair, kicked off his shoes, and stretched out on the bed full length. Ankles crossed.
Reading.
I sucked contemplatively on my milk shake. Yes, I was bone-tired, but still, there were parts of me that really weren't all that tired, and were clamoring for a little attention. My eyes traveled from his naked, slender feet up blue-jean-clad legs and narrow hips. His checked shirt was lying open over a white t-shirt. He turned a page, apparently not noticing my stare. I tossed my DQ bag at the trash can, missed, and got up to throw it in; he made a gesture, and the balled-up paper levitated itself up and gracefully out of sight.
I waited.
He read.
"Well," I finally said, when I'd noisily sucked up the last of the shake, "I think I'm going to take a shower."
He nodded and put an arm under his dark-auburn head without comment.
I got up, turned around, and unbuttoned my blouse. Slowly. Let it slide off over my shoulders. The air conditioning whispered its way over my skin I bent over to slide off my skirt with a lot of unnecessary slow motion and some equally unnecessary wiggling.
I glanced behind me while I was down there, hair dangling to the ground.
David was still reading. Spectacularly not watching my strip tease. Bastard.
I slammed the door behind me on the way into the bathroom, reached in and cranked the water to full blast. It heated up nicely. As steam fogged up the age-spotted mirror, I shed my underwear and stared at my pale face, my blue eyes. I'd always been fair-skinned, but it seemed like coming back to human form had been a real shock. I still looked kind of ill. Not to mention really, really tired. Raccoon-eyes tired.
I twisted to look at my back. Yep, the bullet wound was still there, though reduced to a fading scar. It only twinged a little, thanks to David's healing touch. I was lucky to be … well, I was just incredibly lucky to be, actually.
The odds hadn't been with me for quite some time now.
And here I was, going into something with even worse odds. Am I crazy? The thought wasn't new, but staring into the mirror, it seemed more pertinent than usual. I should just turn the car around. Go home. Find someplace to live out my life in peace and quiet, with a minimum of people shooting at me or blowing me up or trying to kill me with tornadoes.
Because I'd just climbed out of a hospital bed and was heading for Las Vegas, and near-certain death, and nobody was holding a gun to my head to do it. I could punk out. Nobody would blame me.
Except me, of course.
The mirror fogged over again. The steam in the air was making my hair curl, which it never had before I'd done my brief stint as an immortal, all-powerful being, and where's the justice in that? Shouldn't you get a pass on bad hair days after things like that?
I swiped a palm over the glass, clearing a moist path again to continue moping at my reflection, and found that someone was standing right behind me, in the classic surprise! position of serial killers everywhere.
My heart gave a painful, unpleasant twist. I instinctively jerked forward into the bathroom counter, and the man standing behind me gave me a slow, superior smile. Tall, lean, medium-brown hair thickly salted with gray, eyes like black holes.
I knew him. His name was Jonathan, and he was a Djinn. Well, not just a Djinn.
More like, the Djinn. Lord and Master. Grand Pookah of the Universe. Et cetera.
He didn't like me very much. I couldn't quite figure out if it was just a personal thing with humans, or a particular thing with me; I suspected the latter, though. He thought David was wasting himself on me. He probably had a point.
"Just thought I'd drop in," he said, in a perfectly normal tone of voice, as if he hadn't noticed he'd committed a huge personal invasion of my space, and hello, naked? I grabbed for a thin motel-quality towel. Not that he was looking.
Jonathan seemed to find me downright boring. I didn't even rate a reflexive hmmm, naked girl glance.
"Get out," I said. I kept my voice down, because the last thing I wanted — the very last thing — was for David to come charging to my rescue and become the third leg of this triangle. Jonathan could, and had, overpowered him before, and David had to be tired. I sure as hell was.
"I have a message for you. Don't keep this up," Jonathan said, and looked around the bathroom with an expression of disgusted disdain. Like a debutante faced with a Porta-Potti.
"Don't keep what up? Showering? For humans, kind of necessary. Unless you like
the funky smell of — "
"Quit trying to stop Kevin," Jonathan continued, just like I hadn't spoken at all. He was still focusing on the missing piece of tile in the floor next to the tub. "More to the point, quit trying to stop me. You can't get to Las Vegas.
Stop trying. I'll only kill you really, really hard."
"I guess that won't bother you," I said.
For the first time, he met my eyes in the mirror. Unsmiling. Those eyes gave me the shivers, because they were like windows into infinity, the only real outward sign of the power he held within. "Yeah, can't deny there are upsides," he said blandly. "Also problems." As in, David might never trust him again. Killing me might destroy every vestige of friendship between them, and for Djinn as powerful as those two, that couldn't be a good thing. "Do the smart thing.
Turn around and go home."
"I can't do that. You know I can't," I said. "Look, I'm doing this to help you, don't you get it? I went through being a slave to that kid, I know how terrible it is. Help me get into Vegas, I'll set you free." Because that had to be what he wanted, ultimately. Wasn't it?
But if it was, I couldn't tell it from his expression, which remained closed and tight. "You're feeling sorry for me?" His tone was dry and clipped. "Funny. I was about to feel sorry for you."
All my instincts kicked to life. "Why?"
He raised his graying eyebrows, shrugged, and slipped on a pair of entirely unnecessary sunglasses. Nice sunglasses, mind you, the kind made for cutting the glare for Everest climbers and hard-core black-diamond skiers. But entirely unnecessary, because the dim fly-specked bulb over the sink didn't exactly give out a majestic eye-blinding glare.