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I was almost sorry I said it when I saw the devastation on his face This really wasn’t easy for hiaze "Gee, guys, none of you are co with? That’s too bad, ’cause you’re just so darn much fun"

Paul put his hands over his face and leaned his elbows on the table Behind hiht, fresh and dry and clean on the other side of plate glass Inside, the bright yellow and retro-seventies rust decor looked desperate and grubby around the corners The o needed salt I added Tabasco sauce instead

"We’ve got a lot to do," Paul said I didn’t stop dispensing Tabasco "We’re uys; they’ll see you all the way ho up the omelet to my satisfaction "I hope you have a plan B handy, because your plan A sucks, and it’s going to fall apart faster than a Yugoslavian car I don’t care what Kevin says; he’s playing you He’s not giving up his Djinn"

Paul didn’t have the ot a plan B"

"And yet this stands as the best option?" Silence around the table I tried a e "Wow We really are screwed"

"Jo, quit ot over the shock of you not being dead Can you quitfor a while?"

"I’ll quit being a bitch if you quit selling me and mine down the river" I didn’t really want to keep on hurting his with fortitude wasn’t reallywere out, insults hat I had left

We tacitly agreed to a mutual cease-fire, to chew in peace

I finished up and excused o with me "Please," I said, and fixed her with a s "You know I’ back Where can I run? Jesus, let ive you ht hand, pallittered blue up on the aetheric Truth, for anybody with the eyes to see it

Marion nodded and sank back down in the leatherette chair She folded her hands together and watched ravely as I walked away, headed for the door lyphic The plastic fake-wood finish had a tacky fil located too close to the fry baskets I didn’t actually have to pee, but I needed a minute alone A ht, at the curling, still-damp hair and pallid face, at the dark blue eyes that see to ht as died irritably at my hair, which was not supposed to curl like that, and seemed destined to be the bane of my existence for the rest of ravel-rough whisper I froze and looked around Saw nothing Heard an alh that sounded like sandpaper over stone

I felt goose buht back a shiver "Who’s there?" I demanded No feet under the two bathroom stalls Nobody else in the room except my reflection

You know I didn’t know if that voice was in my head, or put there from outside Creepy, either way I stared hard into the mirror, let myself float up into the aetheric, and finally spotted so A flicker Use your eyes Except that my eyes were just plain human these days, not Djinn; I couldn’t see in every spectru to me didn’t exist in this one

Shall I lend youpain, and then I was seeing edges to things that weren’t there, colors that had texture and depth and no name in the world I lived in

In the corner, shadows flowed black into a shape that glittered like faceted coal Spiderlike Dangerous

An Ifrit A failed, twisted Djinn

A vampire

Sara? No, it couldn’t be Sara; she’d died along with Patrick, both giving up their essences to create a human body to house me It was someone else Who?

Who else called me Snow White? "Rahel?"

Lumps of coal have no expression She didn’t es of her start to fray as if she ht disappear "Rahel, wait Please"

Can’t stay

"Why not?"

Hungry

Ifrits ate Djinn I had a sudden, startling ratitude that David was safely locked in the case at Marion ’s feet, out there in the restaurant Much as I liked Rahel-if this was Rahel-I didn’t want heron my lover

My relationship with her was complicated at best As a Free Djinn, she’d been my friend, sometimes my enemy; she’d acted to save my life at least once And I hadn’t been able to stop her froo This wasn’t really Rahel It was the zoly for her to go away

"What do you want?" I asked She answered s

"What kind of things?"

Things to save you

Her voice was getting fainter inon this plane of existence Clearly she needed a recharge to continue Too bad I didn’t carry any handy snack-sized Djinn

The bathroonored ht to a stall, went in, and clicked the lock The satchel with David’s bottle ith her, which gave me the total willies; the Ifrit’s head turned to follow her, but she didn’t attack I went to the sink and ran water, scrubbed my hands, and watched the black shadow in the corner Rahel hadn’t moved, but she was fainter now

"Stay within e and agreed I watched her shadow dissolve completely

"What?" Marion ’s voice I shut the water off and reached for a towel

"Nothing"

That probably wasn’t a lie

When I came back out, there were t faces at the table Paul nodded at them "Jo, this is Carl Cooper and Lel Miller They’ll be taking you home"

Carl was bland His hair was dishwater blond and thinning fast; he had thin lips out of practice for slasses, but I had the strong impression that he wouldn’t have been any more expressive if I’d been able to see his baby blues

Lel Miller was a different story altogether Tall, leggy, gorgeously tanned She had quite the salon finish, right down to the well-kept gleam of her French manicure I held up my palm in the traditional Warden hi-there; they each followed suit, and in the aetheric, our runes glittered