I’d wondered what had happened to Ella during the chaos at the offices. She’d just… vanished. Eamon was the answer. Eamon had followed me. Eamon had grabbed her and hustled her off without anyone noticing, in the chaos.
“Is she still alive?” I asked.
“Repetitive question. Same answer.” His eyes were taking on an almost metallic shine. “Amusing as all this is, I’m running out of patience, love. So let’s get back to the subject.”
“I told you, I don’t have the ones Quinn stole.”
“Oh, yes, I understand that. Those are gone, never to return. I hope you understand; this gentleman Quinn took money from, this lovely gentleman in South America with whom he had a preexisting drug business, he won’t be very happy with that. But that’s really not my affair, as I was fortunately a very quiet partner, and the South American gentleman doesn’t know my name any more than you do. But if he locates me, I’m afraid I’ll have to tell him exactly what yours is.”
“I—” I hated to admit anything to him. “I don’t understand. What the hell do you want?”
“Well, I came here to recover property for my client,” he said, as if it was a normal business arrangement and he was more than a little surprised that I wasn’t following. “There’s no property to be recovered—and I do believe you about that, by the way—but I still have expenses. You can, in fact, be rid of me very cheaply. All I’m asking for is my commission.” He paused and looked down at my sister’s slack, unconscious face. Ran a contemplative thumb over her parted lips and tilted his head, considering her. Enraptured. When his voice came again, it had lost its briskness and sounded more like the old Eamon, slow and warm. “All I want is one. Even trade, one sister for one Djinn.”
I felt my breath lock up tight in my chest, but managed to loosen enough to get the words out. They sounded tight and furious. “You’re deluded. That’s one Djinn more than I have to give you, you asshole.”
For answer, he picked up the remote control from the coffee table and flicked on the big-screen plasma TV on the wall. I turned to look at it. CNNfn was playing, giving a report on falling stocks; he pressed buttons, and a recording began to play. It was at an odd angle, but the focus was sharp enough.
It was my bedroom. My old bedroom. As I watched, the door banged open and I came backing into the room, David with me, both of us feverishly touching each other, devouring each other…
“Stop it,” I whispered.
My on-screen image fell backward onto the bed. David stood looking down at her, and he looked inhuman, beautiful and unsettling, and incredibly…
“Stop it!”
Eamon hit PAUSE. “As pornography goes, it isn’t bad,” he said. “Although personally I prefer my women a little less vocal, as you know. I’ve had your apartment bugged for weeks, love. I had to get to know you before I got to know you, if you follow me. Your sister’s arrival was a complication, but I was able to… improvise.”
I was so angry I was seeing red spots, and had to breathe hard to try to keep from leaping out of the chair and throttling the man dead. He must have known it. He clicked the power off and dropped the remote back to the coffee table.
“You’ve got a Djinn,” he said. “Obviously. And although I hate to break up a grand love affair, well, sorry, but maybe you can have him back when I’m done with him.”
“No. I can’t. I don’t have him.”
“Lying to me will cost your sister another injury, love. I know you have him. I’m not being unreasonable about this, but I’m not going to be lied to.” He put those fingers on the creamy-pale skin of the swell of Sarah’s breast that was exposed in the gap of her robe. “You know I’m not bluffing.”
“I don’t have him! Look, Sarah and I spent last night at the dump, all right? We were looking for David’s bottle, his Djinn bottle! She threw it out during the—the—the big makeover! The one you helped her with!” I gestured compulsively around at the designer’s showroom of an apartment.
He stared at me for a second, astonished, and then laughed. Really laughed, a genuinely amused guffaw. He moved his hand away from Sarah’s throat to stroke her hair, then grabbed it and wrenched her head back to a dangerous angle.
I came up out of the chair. “Leave her alone!”
“Or?” Eamon didn’t even look at me. He no longer seemed amused, or casual. There was something dark and tense in him now, and I could see a compulsively cruel streak in him that was very unsettling. He liked doing this to her. Almost couldn’t resist it. It’s hardly the first time… I wondered what he’d done to her at night, when she’d been lying in that bed with him, zoned out on whatever drug he’d given her. Oh dear God. I had to stop this.
“Stop it or I’ll kill you,” I said. I meant it.
He looked up then, the nightmare still in his avid eyes, the hungry set of his lips. “I live on borrowed time with a very scary set of characters as company. Threats from you are like being threatened by a sprog on the playground, love. But do go on. It’s amusing.”
I changed tacks. “Is that why you want to get a Djinn? To save your skin? Make you invincible?”
He was thinking over what I’d said, clicking it over in his brain. It was easy to see that he was brilliant. His transparency was part of what made him so damn frightening. “Invincibility,” he said. “No. Although that would be nice, wouldn’t it, invincibility? But I can take care of myself, always have. Not interested, really.”
“Why do you need a Djinn, then?”
“For someone else.”
“You don’t strike me as the type who thinks of others.”
I got a hot flash of temper, the first I’d really seen. “I haven’t struck you at all, pet. But if you insult me, I may have to take my fit of pique out on someone more ready to hand. Here’s what I want from you, and it’s not negotiable: be a good little bitch and go out and find me a Djinn. Any Djinn. I don’t care what it looks like, because unlike you I won’t be fucking it.”
“I’m not leaving you here with Sarah!”
The flare of temper I’d spotted was nothing compared to the full-throated roar that erupted out of him. “I’m not giving you a bloody choice!” He took Sarah’s limp left arm, skimmed the sleeve back, and held her forearm in both hands.
Prepared to snap it.
His eyes dared me to test him.
I swallowed hard and said, “If you hurt her, you have no idea how much I’ll make you suffer before you die.”
“You’re repeating yourself, and as there’s only one of the three of us who’s sustained any injury at all, you might think hard about the trend.” He tightened his hold on her fragile, limp arm. “You have exactly two hours before I start breaking things, working up from the bottom. If I go slowly enough, she’ll wake up before I’m finished. Oh, and love, just in case you have any brilliant ideas about calling the police, I’m taking her with me. I’ll call and tell you where to meet me with the Djinn. One life for another. I’m not unreasonable, but I am very, very determined.”
I stood, tense and agonized, as he rose and effortlessly lifted Sarah’s limp body in his arms. It was a parody of a romantic picture, her hair tousled, her head cradled against his chest. Arm draped loosely around his neck. I remembered seeing them asleep in bed together, curled into each others’ warmth.