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He whispered, "Leave me"
"Like hell!" I snapped "God, please, don’t do this-David, I order you to heal-"
Kevin was standing next to ," he said "Whoa I didn’t know they did that"
"Shut up, you little bastard" I looked up, and for a second I thought the dancing red dot on his chest had so my vision, but then I realized late and cold what exactly it was
I’d forgotten all about Quinn and his sniper rifle
The red dot was a laser sight, focused on Kevin’s heart
"No!" I screaainst his chest He tripped, fell on his ass I stood up, waving my arms "No, Quinn, stop, it’s over, it’s over-"
Kevin leaped up, the idiot A clear target
The red dot settled over my heart Steady as a rock
It was focused on h time to throw myself backward, and I swear, I felt the supersonic hiss of the bullet’s friction burning the air as it passed over ht, and then I saw that there had been so behind h to bounce up like a pop target on a shooting gallery
Her mouth was open in amazement She stared down at the red hole-about the size of h her chest She didn’t reallysound, like so to clear their throat, and then there was a sudden shocking flood of red out of her mouth
She pitched forward over me I raised my head and saw the hole in her back, the size of a clenched fist, full of blood like a deep well that spilled over in gouts and splashes She was shaking all over I yelled soht have been Marion’s na for her, but I felt her going
We both felt her die
Her body collapsed against me, limp and empty, and for the first time I saw that her eyes weren’t hazel at all; they were a beautiful spider’s-web pattern of old
Her body felt heavy as sin, draped over me
I don’t kno many seconds that was-it felt like an eternity-and then Kevin was there, screae of power as he tried to force her body to live; the flesh ju but reflex
"She’s gone," I whispered There was blood all over ers "Kevin, stop She’s gone"
He kept trying Breathing into herdead flesh with jolt after jolt of raer as he tried to change the ione zombie-white, but his eyes were furious, his lips sot a Djinn! Save her!"
"No," I said
"I’ll kill you, I swear I will!" I could feel the fury co off of him, but the words were little-boy words, broken and afraid The power he had was nothing like little-boy power, though; it was Lewis’s power, and it could crush s you aren’t supposed to ever ask your Djinn to do Give you eternal life Give you unliets h In that first chill of grief, too many turn to their Djinn and blurt out an order they shouldn’t The consequences were tragic and legendary
Because when you do those particular things, the Djinn act under a totally different set of iic that drives theue, hard, and sed a screaone, Kevin I’ht for a second he really would kill me, kill me with his bare bloodstained hands, but then tears spilled over and he was sobbing hopelessly
"Stay down," I said, and crawled to where David was still lying on the floor He wasn’t any better In fact, he looked worse Breathing in shallow gasps His eyes weren’t brown any to kill you," he reed shakily "I saw Why would Quinn try to kill me?"
He reached up to touch host of contact
"Don’t leave me," I whispered "You can’t leave me, David I won’t let you"
His pale lips parted to shape my name, silently I felt the love in it
"I need you," I said "I need you withfunny in asp in enough air "God, David, don’t do this to me Don’t you dare"
He tried to answer me, but then his back arched and he cried out His open eyes shifted froh the spectrum I remembered that I’d seen it before
Flesh corrupted andwet stripes of muscle Bone Layer by layer, he died
What was left turned hard and cold and black
Frozen
Ifrit
Soft hu eainst someone as I whimpered Unable to weep now Unable to screa was cold
David was a thing of ice and shadow, burned by darkness Lying on the floor andto me, but I couldn’t understand her; she unzipped the purse at thless hand and wrapped it around David’s blue glass bottle
She was tellingIt didn’t matter anymore, but I numbly echoed the words "Back in the bottle," I said The words sounded odd in ue
The Ifrit that lay like some twisted sculpture in David’s place misted into an oily whisper and disappeared Marion fumbled the stopper in place
Rahel No one else could see her, but I couldn’t just leave her here I took the second, empty bottle I whispered the words Rahel’s frozen body disappeared, too
There were rescuers co wildly in the dust-filled air Marion zipped the purse shut and held ot to us Parahters One of them forced Kevin to put down Siobhan’s body, and the three of us-the three survivors-rapped in blankets and led out through the tangle of steel and broken glass and darkness
I reer seemed toto dance on iven up the field of battle I didn’t care If he wanted to shoot me, shoot and be daht, and I blinked and shaded my eyes