Three Wishes (7 page)

Cali had piloted a helicopter before. But the experimental Morningstar was something else again. She’d borrowed it from a US military research-and-development facility. She hadn’t bothered to be discreet either, and the security alarms were screaming the unthinkable theft on the other side of the Atlantic.

It had been a long night. Setting up a weapons display that would frighten and disgust Miriam into leaving required imagination, logistical discipline and sheer effort. And then there was Cali’s darker purpose—David’s death.

It would take some doing to kill David, and him only, when he was hiding behind the bulletproof glass and in the midst of a small crowd.

Fortunately Cali’s vow to kill every man who commanded her wishes allowed her a degree of temporal freedom. He didn’t have to die on the spot. She just had to set and light the fuse of his destruction.

The helicopter accelerated as her energy gathered in anticipation. She reached for control, centering herself and slowing the chopper. The weapons display was timed to the microsecond. She wouldn’t let her excitement derail it—nor would she admit to nerves.

But it bothered her that she hadn’t seen Andrew all night. He should have been dogging her footsteps, checking that he could keep David safe from her plans, her lethal intent. It couldn’t be that he trusted her.

“A vow is a vow. I will kill David. He deserves it.”

She was flying east, the Mediterranean Sea storm-tossed beneath her, and the hint of land at the horizon growing larger.

Everything was in place. Guns of all sizes, grenades and land mines, fakery from Hollywood mixed with death-dealing reality. There were dummies set to mimic human casualties and a soundtrack of screams. Colored smoke would add to the chaos. It would be a battlefield of total destruction. Miriam would see David as the supplier of Armageddon.

And when it was all over, when Miriam left and David was alone, there would be live land mines and other traps. She’d set them so that no one else could trigger them. David, and David alone, was her prey.

She was about to fulfill his second wish.

The helicopter arrived at the base of the cliff, out of sight of the house and its noise muffled.

Three, two, one
… “Showtime.”

The blades of the helicopter filled the air with their ominous thunder. The sea churned away beneath it, and rocks bounced down the cliff. From overhead came the whine and smack of bullets and the first screams. Cali brought the helicopter up and over the cliff, knowing how frightening the black gleaming metal looked. She fired two missiles, dummies, that exploded into the restored castle. It was illusion, but the castle wall fell in a cloud of dust.

She jerked the helicopter up and over the house, bailing out and sending it back to its research base. Let the Americans puzzle over its reappearance.

A row of land mines exploded, showering dirt. The heavy thud of explosives made the earth unstable. The ground beneath the spectators’ feet would be shaking, literally. From here on, the weapons display would run itself.

Cali rematerialized inside David’s house, in the living room.

The three clients stood by the bombproof windows, glued to the show. They shared a running commentary of appreciation for the finer details of death and destruction.

Miriam huddled back in a chair, her face bloodless and her eyes tortured.

Cali’s conscience twinged and she looked hurriedly to David. He watched Miriam for long, painful seconds. Then his hands fisted and he looked away, out to the pseudo-battlefield.

“God in heaven.” David lunged for the door. He knocked the lock up and ran out.

Why on earth?
She looked out at the screaming warzone. There was the whine and smack of bullets and the heavier
whoomph
of explosives, and running through it all—

Oh my God.
Cali stopped breathing.

“David!”

The American, Gary, caught Miriam around the waist and swung her back hard against him. “Go out there and it’s suicide. Damn fool. He should have built his show with a kill switch. That’s live ammo out there.”

There’s also a child,
Cali thought desperately.
A child.

David ran, hunched low to the ground. A bullet struck near his feet and dirt kicked up.

Shit, shit, shit.
If he trod on one of the land mines she’d keyed to him, it would blow up. And he was close enough that it would catch the child too.

The child was only a toddler, dressed in blue dungarees and blundering in tears and confusion, terrified. However he’d come to be outside, he was now running and falling in panicked circles, unable to find safety. His wails rose above the fake screams Cali had recorded on her soundtrack.

David flinched. Something had struck him. But if anything, his pace only quickened. He was within meters of the toddler.

“Let me go.” Miriam fought Gary.

A kill switch.
Gary had mentioned a kill switch. She had to stop the show. Cali’s reflexes were inhumanly fast, but it felt as if she moved through tar.

Three guns with live ammunition. She sent a bolt of energy to melt them into useless scrap metal.

Two live grenades still to explode. She hurled them over the cliff.

The wired explosives were far enough away to cause no harm.

That left the land mines primed to kill David. Cali ripped them out with her bare hands and sent them after the grenades.

Everything else was smoke and mirrors, noise and confusion, but not deadly.

David reached the toddler and scooped him up. David didn’t know it was safe yet. His body curved, trying to protect the boy from the bombardment.

Cali’s heart stopped. She knew that brown hair with its tinge of red. The boy wasn’t some villager’s toddler. She knew him.

Andrew.

Her breath froze in agony. Andrew.

Human technology couldn’t kill an angel, but carelessness could hurt him. He’d been in danger. He’d
put
himself in danger.

She flung her arm out and her bangles rattled. The bullets stopped. The noise ceased. The castle reappeared, whole and sturdy. The show ended with a suddenness as violent as its performance. Silence held the scene.

David staggered in with Andrew in his arms. Blood poured down the man’s face. The toddler Andrew smiled.

It was the last straw. Cali materialized, snatched Andrew out of David’s arms and whisked them out of the room.

“You reckless, conniving—”

Andrew shifted to his full adult appearance. “You put on quite a show, love.”

She slapped him. She’d been revved on adrenaline even before Andrew had run out under the guise of a toddler. She’d been sick with terror and shame even before she recognized him. And now, unfamiliar fear for him had to find an outlet.

“Yes. Attack me.” His chest heaved, his heartbeat thundered. “Bite me. Fight me. Punish me for scaring you.”

“I should.”

He lifted her, pushing her up against the wall and anchoring her with his thighs. “Do it.” He seemed high on his own adrenaline rush.

There was a smear of David’s blood on his cheekbone. Her heart insisted on saying it could have been his.

Cali bit his mouth, not drawing blood, then fitting their lips together hard. She plunged her tongue deeper, filling herself with his taste.

His fingers dug into her hips.

She wrapped her legs around him, urging him closer, asserting her control. She used his strength and the wall behind her shoulder blades and arched against him.

He sucked her tongue, hot and desperate, and closed his hand over a breast, massaging roughly.

The abrasion sent pleasure stabbing to her stomach and further. She was swollen and damp, so ready she ached. She moved urgently and Andrew groaned.

“Do you feel…punished?” She could feel him hard and full, straining against the jeans he wore.

“Sweet agony.”

“Is that a yes?” She nipped his earlobe, then sucked it eagerly. She wanted to fill herself with him.

He shuddered against her. “More.”

Much more and she’d explode. She covered his mouth with hers and slid a hand between their bodies, tracing his length and feeling him pulse.

His tongue mimicked the possession he wanted as he trapped her hand and rubbed himself explicitly against her.

“Andrew.”

He thrust once, hard, and stilled with his body trembling against hers. “I want to make love to you.”

“Yes.”

Yes. Cali said yes
. He wanted to shout, to cry, to strip off her clothes and bury himself so deep she screamed his name.

He couldn’t. His breath shuddered as duty roared back.

“But now’s not the time. I let this get out of hand.”

She stiffened in his arms, her lovely yielding body freezing and moving away from what she read as rejection.

“I want you.” He held her tight. “Believe me, Cali. Stopping is killing me. But I won’t take advantage of a surge of adrenaline…and David needs me.”

“David.” Her legs unlocked from his waist and she stood.

He mourned the lost closeness as she pushed him away.

“You and David, the noble heroes.”

“What?” He couldn’t follow her train of thought.

“You want to save me from myself and David wants to save Miriam from him. You set him up, and me, to prove he’s worth redeeming.”

“He put a child’s safety before his own. He didn’t hesitate.”

“But he and you can’t make decisions for Miriam and me.”

“When you care about someone—”

“Stop.” She held up her hand. “I make decisions for me. You don’t get to say why or when I do something. Fucking you might have been a mistake.”

He winced at the crudity.

“But it was my mistake to make. Not that I’ll be making it now. As you reminded me, we both have unfinished business with David.” She stalked down the hallway and slammed open the door to the living room.

Andrew scrubbed a hand over his face. “Our unfinished business is with each other.”

The living room door crashed back. Cali leaned through. “You said no.”

“I said
later.
” He moved forward into her space and caught the door as she tried to slam it shut.

“Too bad.”

“Excuse us.” David’s Egyptian client coughed politely. Behind him stood the Israeli and American. And behind them was Eli.

“Damn.” Cali whirled and stomped into the room.

Eli grabbed her arm. She glared at him, prepared to make him regret the action. She would go where she damn well pleased.

“Let her go,” David said.

He sat in a leather armchair, his head back while Miriam cleaned his scalp. She’d stopped the bleeding. A white plaster covered the gash on his forehead. Her actions now were about tidying the gore—and perhaps an excuse to touch him. Her body language said she cared.

Eli released Cali’s arm. “What about the man?” A jerk of his head indicated Andrew.

Cali blinked. She’d been too upset to remember to go invisible. What was Andrew’s excuse?

“I’m with Cali.” He stood beside her, evading Eli. “I want to thank David for saving the boy.”

“I don’t know how he came to be there.” The security guard shook his head. “I checked and double-checked. You should have read the warning signs, lady. Without David you’d have lost your little boy.” He scowled at Cali.

She crossed the room, ignoring him. It wasn’t as easy to ignore Andrew, who kept pace with her. Hell, her body still simmered with arousal.

“Eli,” David said in quiet warning and command. “Gentlemen.”

His clients recognized the invitation to depart.

“I reckon the
public
show’s over,” Gary said with sly amusement.

Cali tipped a statue of Diana standing on a side table. It fell onto the American’s foot. “Reckon so,” she said under her breath.

He swore. The Israeli and Egyptian made their farewells among murmurs of “vibrations dislodging things.” Eli ushered the three out and closed the door with a click.

“You missed, Cali.” David blinked as water from the cloth Miriam wielded dripped into his eye.

“The little boy and you playing hero weren’t my ideas,” Cali said. “It was him, your guardian angel.”

Andrew stared down at David. “I’m glad you chose life.”

Miriam’s cloth splashed into a bowl of water. She scowled at Andrew. “You set him up?”

“He needed to know who he was. To choose.”

“I detest people who play God.” Miriam put her hands on her hips. “And how dare you risk a child.”

“I was the child.” Andrew shifted into child form and back. “I was in no danger.”

Miriam retreated, her knees bumping into David’s legs. He pulled her down into his lap. “You’re really an angel?”

“Yes.”

“And Cali’s a djinni.” David smiled wryly, his cheek against Miriam’s hair. “I thought she was the one trying to kill me.”

“I am. But I’m more subtle than Andrew.”

“You’ve removed all the weapons, land mines, everything,” he said. “You won’t kill David.”

“He has one more wish. That means I have one more opportunity.” She leaned against the window, silhouetted by light.

“I don’t believe any of this,” Miriam said. “Perhaps I’m the one who got hit on the head.”

“Then how come I’m the one with the headache?”

Miriam turned in David’s lap, reaching up to touch his forehead. “You have concussion. I don’t want to give you painkillers till I’m sure it’s nothing worse.”

“It’s not,” Andrew said.

“And where did you get your medical degree?”

“I’m his angel. I know. What he needs is sleep. Take him to bed.”

Miriam blushed. So did David. She wriggled off his lap. Her eyes showed her pride, fear and love for him. Her fingers trembled as she smoothed her shirt.

He leaned forward, catching her hand, the watching djinni and angel forgotten. “You shouldn’t love me. I’m not a safe person to love.”

“Who is?” Her hand clasped his. “Love always risks everything.”

“I meant to scare you away.”

“You can’t protect me from life, David. Or from love.” She kissed his forehead, then straightened. “Come to bed. A concussion needs rest.”

He stood and looked down at her with his heart in his eyes. She smiled and put her arm around his waist.

Cali’s throat tightened. For the first time she saw David, not the master who owned her bottle and commanded her, but the man who loved and was loved yet risked his life to save a child. She saw why Andrew had been so determined to save him—there was good in his soul. Miriam had found it and brought it to life.

The hard shell of revenge that protected Cali’s heart suffered a terminal crack. Her hands flattened against the cold window glass, holding her steady as the pattern of her life fissured. Revenge had been an easy survival strategy. How was she to survive Solomon’s curse if she opened herself up to caring? She wasn’t free to care.

She looked at David, supported by Miriam’s arm around his waist and the loving concern in her face.

He stared back at her, his body angled protectively between her and Miriam, and tipped his head in challenge. He’d fight for Miriam.

“Don’t worry.” Cali was infinitely tired. “I don’t hurt innocents and she loves you.” The words hurt. She was giving a master what she couldn’t have: freedom to live and love. “I won’t kill you.”

David glanced from her to Andrew, then nodded. It was an acknowledgement, not thanks. He believed her, perhaps because of her weariness or because of the satisfaction and pride that underlay Andrew’s smile.

She turned away.

“Be happy together,” Andrew said.

Pain screamed through Cali. He was blessing David and Miriam, wishing the couple what she craved and was cursed never to embrace. She couldn’t give herself to Andrew because she was already trapped. She’d not hold him to share her prison or wait decades between masters till she could emerge again from her bottle to serve another master and steal some precious time with Andrew.

“Cali love.” He touched her face as the other couple departed. The room shimmered. In a heartbeat they were standing on the top of the castle, the cool sea wind stirring her hair.

She widened her eyes and let the wind dry her incipient tears. She pushed aside grief and encouraged the rage that filled her emptiness and spilled out in a torrent of frustration. “We can’t have their happy ending. They’re going to bed, kisses and cuddles and whispered secrets. I’m still cursed, still bound to the bottle.”

“We can make our own happy ending.” He sounded so sure.

“No.” She looked away from him, out across the sea.

He pulled her back against his body, denying the loneliness of her stance. He wrapped his arms beneath her breasts. His warm breath touched her ear. “Let me love you.”

“There’s no future in it.” She covered his hands with hers, holding his arms against her belly and pressing herself back into his body, unable to deny herself these memories. Resentment made her crude. “Unless you want a quick screw?”

“I want you, all of you.”

“I can’t give myself! I can’t. I’m cursed, bound. Scared.”

“Cali.” He turned her to face him.

It hurt so much. He was everything she wanted and everything she feared.

“Go away, Andrew. Go away.”

He flinched. The entreaty in his face closed to remote sternness.

It was the final agony. All she could give those she loved was pain.

“Go away,” she screamed.

He went.