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And then I realized that I could also be accused of being shallow, hyperactively on the h Smarter, anyway

We turned off on a paved road and passed under a big wrought-iron gate decorated with-I’-the chromed silhouette of a nude woman, the exact copy of what you see on taste-free truckers’ mud flaps The naoing to be fun

The house was an overdone Tudor style, ridiculous out here on the prairie There was a struggling, desperately green lawn in front that looked suspiciously like it e with three cars, all crap-year Corvettes All red, of course In the corner, a gold pi me up all the way up the front walk, but I wasn’t listening; I was looking into the aetheric Oversight gives you a nice lay of the land, particularly since there’s a fourth-dimensional time layer to it that represents the past The history of Chaz’s pad was nothing to be proud of On the aetheric, the place showed its true character A shell of a place, barely there overlaid with shadows That was kind of sad Even the place where he lived didn’t make much of an impression on the world

Neither did Chaz himself People tended to manifest on the aetheric in visual representations of their self-ie of his physical form I wondered what he sahen he looked at et the oddest expressions

Well, the only good neas that Chaz wasn’t likely to be a serial killer, not with a basically boring aetheric presence like this Not that I couldn’t defend myself, but it was nice not to have to worry about it I had plenty of other things on my mind

His house was self-consciously tacky-retro-seventies without any semblance of a cool factor He made reference to the water bed I shut him down and made it clear that I expected to be shown to the home office

It was at the back of the house, and it looked like he’d set it up fro rather than to suit any kind of actual work process; everything was expensive, but nothing was very good The filing cabinet was some exotic handcrafted wood, but the drawers stuck Inside, there was a chaos of unmarked folders, piles of haphazard papers, crap mixed in with vital documents I’d heard he hadn’t filed quarterly reports in a year; they were probably here, stuffed in with downloaded porn photos The records I found well, threadbare would have been a generous description

After two hours I was ready to scream and blow the whole place aith a tornado Instead-rerabbed and boxed up everything that looked reot thinner and thinner, and wrote him out a receipt for what I’d taken

The Jag’s trunk was roo four to the backseat, and headed back to the hotel

Time to settle in with rooled through the paperwork

It was going to be a long, long audit

I drifted back to the present, and realized that instead of lullingup at the ceiling and watching rain patterns ripple across the spackle The light out in the parking lot was a bright blue-white, like sustained lightning

I considered doing so as it didn’t develop into so, I decided to let it ride There were Weather Wardens aplenty roa around the country; the Wardens Association was on the verge of chaos, ith the senior leadership being dead and all hell breaking loose out here in the desert I was here with a specific job, and I ought to concentrate on it

Like last time And look how that had turned out

I closed my eyes on a vision of blood and tried, uselessly, to sleep

I woke up, not reht side, staring into David’s face He atching ood toothbrushing, not to s I hadn’t needed to deal hen Djinn Those halcyon days were iant pain in the ass

"Sleep well?" David asked

I hadn’t, and he knew it "Where’d you go? No, I take it back, I don’t really want to know Why did you go?"

"We were going to fight" He lifted a hand and traced a fingertip up the outside of my arm to my shoulder "I didn’t see any reason it had to happen You were just tired and discouraged"

"Fighting can lead to other things" It had before Our first real loveht in a hotel I saw the ht to have that" His voice had dropped an octave, gone even quieter, but there was a tension behind it that lide of his touch on me took a left turn, followed the line of my collarbone

"Close the curtains," I whispered Behind hi out the frowning clouds and the steady, mournful pulse of rain It occurred to me, late and with an electric jolt to the spine, that David was under the covers with me, and he’d already done aith the bother of clothes His glasses lay carefully folded on the nightstand, next to the fragile blue glitter of his bottle

Nothing between us but skin, mine real-whatever that ic And all the more real for that, because he’d chosen this Chosen me

I felt cold As if he knew it, he put his arms aroundkiss on my forehead, a benediction I didn’t deserve, and slowly traveled down to entle as the rain outside Healing the chill insideinto e like liquid fire I pulled away a little, looking into his eyes So much passion in him, constrained by so much will

"What did that mean?" I asked hiertips like a blindthe shape of my face, and didn’t answer "David, what did that ainst me The lazy focus of his eyes sharpened "Don’t," he warnedvery specifically repetitive, and I felt the surge of power as the Rule of Three kicked in He was compelled to answer me truthfully, but of course, the truth with Djinn could be fluid It wouldn’t be outside the boundaries for hia his bottle didn’t mean I owned his soul

But he didn’t try to avoid it His eyes went the color of dark, tarnished brass, alainst my cheek

"It’s part of a ritual," he said "The literal translation is that I will one Because you’reto lose you I hate it, but I know it’s going to happen Because you won’t be sensible"

There wasn’t a breath between us Skin on skin, sealed together with sweat as body heat rose My whole body was aching and throbbing for hi

"What kind of ritual?"

"Joanne-"