Chill Factor (22 page)

There didn’t seem to be any reason to go limping back to the Luxor, particularly since it was at least a half a mile hike farther than the Bellagio, and I’d just have to turn right around and go do the bidding of the Ma’at, not to mention the Wardens. Since no cabbie in his right mind would be stopping to pick up a shoeless, windblown, ragged waif in the predawn darkness, I hit the sidewalk. It was marginally easier than scaling the fence had been, which had involved layers of scrounged rags, a piece of old tyre, and a fine collection of lacerations. I kept to the shadows, avoiding any unnecessary attention from the pervs and the cops. The fountains were quiet in front of the hotel; I suppose it had something to do with the wind, which was still kicking up hot and fast.

Even as early – late – as it was, there were plenty of people entering and leaving. I paused, considering the brightly lit front entrance, and looked down at myself.

Nope. Not happening. The Bellagio did have standards.

The parking lot was a sea of cars, all nicely docked at anchor. I limped through a couple of rows, spotted a few – there were always a few, even in these suspicious times – with doors left unlocked. The first two yielded nothing but nice velour upholstery and change in the drink holders; the third had a gym bag lying on the back floorboard. Black leggings, T-shirt, socks, and cross-trainers, all
smelling of recent use. I went with the leggings and T-shirt, couldn’t stomach the socks, and jammed the too-large shoes on over my abraded feet. My in-shape benefactor had included a hairbrush. I put it to use, wincing through the tangles, and tied the lot back with a scrap of fabric from my trashed skirt.

I’d pass. Sort of.

I jogged through the parking lot, trying to look as if I were enjoying the exercise instead of wincing with every step, went the long way around to work up a good coating of sweat, and then jogged into the lighted portico. Uniformed doormen held open double glass portals, and I threw them a jaunty wave and walked in without so much as a raised eyebrow. Bent over to pull in some deep, gasping breaths, which weren’t at all feigned.

‘Glad you made it back, miss,’ one of them said pleasantly in a lovely British accent. ‘Quite a storm out there.’

‘Was there?’ I put my hands behind my back and stretched. ‘Didn’t notice.’

I tossed him a grateful smile and escaped into the lobby. Most of the desk clerks were off duty; only a couple maintained the graveyard shift. The casino continued its constant money gulping, to the accompaniment of pleasant electronic beeps and the glittering metallic tinkle of change. I turned and walked down the endless stretch of carpet, to the hallway that held the elevators.

There was still a uniformed security man on duty. I made a production of wiping sweat from my face as I walked towards him, gave him my most vapid smile, and waved. He ignored me. Evidently no self-respecting hooker would go out looking quite so bad.

I punched the button from memory and leant against the wall, trying not to catalogue the ways I hurt, starting with the still-throbbing headache that was reasserting its claim, and the various aches, bruises, and near-death experiences. I needed a week at the spa, with deep-tissue massage and hot stone therapy. Not to mention some intensive chocolate care.

The floor was deserted when I arrived, a long channel of expensive carpet and closed doors. No sound. I walked down the hall to the door where Kevin and Jonathan had made their little home-away-from-hell.

When I reached out to knock, it swung open. Very
Addams Family
.

‘Hey,’ Jonathan said. He was sitting on the couch, exactly as I’d first seen him – lean, athletic, military without the uniform. A black round-necked knit shirt that was somehow more formal than a simple tee, some kind of khaki cargo pants with lots of pockets. Sturdy lace-up boots. ‘Jo,’ he greeted me, and nodded at the armchair across from him. ‘Come in. Take a load off.’

I did, without comment.

His salt-and-pepper eyebrows quirked as he gave me the merciless once-over. ‘Bad day?’

‘Not the worst I’ve ever had. Which doesn’t say a lot for my life, does it?’

‘You look like you could use a beer.’

There were two bottles on the end table next to him. I twisted off the cap of one and took a swig. A little harsh and hoppy, but acceptably cold and refreshing.

‘Nice cuts and bruises,’ Jonathan said pleasantly. ‘How’s it going?’

‘Good. You?’

‘Can’t complain.’ His eyes were dark, dark like the space no stars could ever shine. ‘And that takes care of the small talk. You
do
understand that I’m going to kill you if you so much as think about getting in my way, right?’

‘I don’t want much. I want a halfway decent massage, a herbal scrub, and to put a stop to this before we all get killed.’ I leant back and kicked a leg over the arm of the chair, casual as could be. After the night I’d had, Jonathan didn’t really bother me all that much. ‘You knew about the Djinn with the Demon Mark. You let Kevin set him free.’

He didn’t confirm or deny. He just tilted his beer bottle slightly in my direction, and I saw the Djinn’s past go by in a blur. Enslaved to a bottle. Working
for a hated master. Being called one day and commanded to stretch out its hand…

…and take a black scorched Mark on its master’s chest as its own.

Locked away in a bottle, sealed for all eternity with an enemy it couldn’t defeat and couldn’t ever surrender to. Dying, but never dead. Infected.

The bottle being grabbed and stuffed in Kevin’s pocket, at the Wardens Association vault in New York. A distorted, wavering view of Kevin, Jonathan, David, Lewis…

…me.

‘Not that you care,’ he said remotely, ‘but that’s a friend of mine trapped and dying.’

‘I can’t save him.’

‘No,’ he agreed. ‘You can’t. Neither can I. Sucks, right?’

He tipped his beer back upright and took a sip. Dark eyes never leaving me.

I sighed. ‘Come on, Jonathan, let’s quit playing games. What do you want from me?’

‘You trying out the Rule of Three? I wouldn’t.’ His smile warned me of all kinds of unpleasantness. ‘How’s it feel when the chickens come home to crap all over you?’

I leant forward, rolling the beer bottle between my palms, and looked him directly in the eye. ‘David’s here. In Las Vegas.’

‘Bullshit. You don’t have his bottle.’

‘Somebody does. Maybe it’s the same guy who’s been bogarting Djinn for the past decade. You know, the one you’re looking for?’

‘You’re lying.’

‘I could be.’ I deliberately upended my beer and drained it dry. Burped. ‘Explain something to me. You didn’t give a shit about freeing him the whole time he was Bad Bob’s property.’ The second the words left my mouth I wished I could rewind the tape, but he didn’t react. Much. ‘You didn’t rescue him when Bad Bob was whoring him out to Yvette Prentiss for her little games. It occurs to me to wonder why you’re so hot to protect him from
me
. Who doesn’t mean him any harm, as well you know.’

He shrugged and took a pull off of his own beer.

His eyes never left me. ‘He hated Bad Bob,’ Jonathan said. ‘He hated Yvette. You…’ He kept the heat off the words, but the air felt electric and harsh. ‘I can deal with the others. They only enslaved his body. You’ve gutted him.’

‘And you want things back the way they were?’ I set the bottle down on the shiny antique side table. ‘That’s not mine to give, Big J. Take it up with him. Oh, wait, you did, right? And when you told him to choose, he picked me. Wow. Bummer.’

I felt a sharp pain go through my chest. Arrhythmia. Jonathan took another casual sip of beer.

‘How’s it feel, being back in the old body again? Working out for ya?’

‘Famously.’ I wasn’t going to beg. Another stab of agony, this one longer. ‘I need your help.’

‘Kinda figured you might.’

‘If you care about this kid at all, you need to help me get your bottle away from him.’

Jonathan raised his eyebrows. ‘So
you
can be my new owner? Sorry, I dance with the one that brung me.’

‘You mean that you’re not through with him yet.’

‘You’ve got to admit, the kid has talent. And one hell of a lot of power.’

‘Which he stole.’

‘Some of it.’ Jonathan shrugged. ‘Hey, his idea, not mine. Don’t shoot the messenger.’

‘Not that it’d do any good to shoot you.’

‘There’s that… The Ma’at are ready to move, is that what you’re telling me?’ Jonathan adjusted his position slightly, rolled his head to the side, but kept me pinned in his stare. ‘Time’s up?’

‘They’ll kill him,’ I said softly. ‘You know they won’t hesitate if they think there’s no alternative.’

No answer. He tipped his beer up, and his throat worked.

And he smiled.

‘Hey, kid,’ he said, and put the bottle aside. ‘You’re awake.’

I looked around to see Kevin standing in the
bedroom doorway. He looked pale and nervous and small, hair stuck up at odd angles as if it had never seen the toothy side of a comb. Next to him stood the thin tattooed girl, her short red hair gleaming, her hands clasped around Kevin’s arm. Siobhan. The hooker.

Kevin stared at me with dead eyes. ‘I thought I told you to kill her,’ he said.

‘Didn’t tell me when,’ Jonathan pointed out, and when Kevin opened his mouth to rectify the mistake, Jonathan held up a single finger and waggled it.

Kevin shut up.

‘Hey!’ Siobhan glared, and took a step forward. She had cheap plastic high-heeled hooker shoes, but great balance, and the orange toenail polish was all that. She was too sharp in the chin, too narrow in the eyes, but the whole package was effective as hell in a knit top and low-rise jeans. ‘He
owns
you, man! You have to do what he says!’

‘Siobhan,’ Kevin said quietly. ‘Don’t.’

‘Yeah. Don’t.’ Jonathan’s tolerance for Kevin clearly didn’t extend to girlfriends. ‘Butt out, Red, and I won’t feel the need to show you the curb the hard way.’

That gave me a nice, cold shiver. When Siobhan started to fire back a retort, I shook my head. ‘No,’ I said. ‘He’s not kidding. Just relax, OK?’

‘Like you care.’ She had a glare identical to
Kevin’s. Interesting. Maybe he actually had found a soul mate, all the way out here. A soul mate with her picture plastered on call-girl cards all over the street, but hey, it wasn’t like Kevin was fresh out of the Innocent Academy. Kevin
would
find someone more screwed up than himself to fall for. It was inevitable. Since he’d been powerless for so long, someone in worse shape than him would have a powerful appeal.

‘I care,’ I said gently. ‘I’m trying to keep him alive. Just do what this guy tells you, OK? And let me handle the witty banter.’

Jonathan was looking bored. When I turned my attention back to him, he did an exaggerated lift of his eyebrows to indicate just how extreme his ennui was.

‘What do you want?’ I asked.

His eyes flickered, and for a second I thought he really
was
going to swat me like a fly. And then he smiled. ‘OK. Here’s the truth: I want you to be careful.’

‘And you care because…?’

His eyes focused briefly and pointedly where the warm spark of life fluttered inside me. ‘Got reasons.’

‘I’m not naming him after you, if that’s what you’re thinking.’

Jonathan’s lips curled into a deeper smile. A real one, nothing sinister or sarcastic about it. When he looked at me like that – no, at what was
in
me – I
felt faint. He had the same supernatural power David possessed to make women’s clothes fall off; he just rarely bothered to show it. I was grateful. If he’d looked at me like that before, I might’ve handed over David’s bottle without a fight.

Well, not really. But I would’ve thought about it.

‘Because of Imara,’ Jonathan said. Purred, actually. It was that kind of a word.

‘Excuse me?’ Before I could react, he stood up, reached over, and put his hand over my stomach. His touch was hot enough to scorch, almost painful, and I opened my mouth to yelp…

…and it ceased to hurt at all. There was a fast whirl of images that burnt through me: a young woman with luxuriant black hair that fell in cascades to her waist. Laughing, talking, moving with the supernatural fury and grace of a Djinn. Her lips were David’s. Her eyes…God, her eyes. Stern and burning, and the colour of pure gold. She smelt of warm things, vanilla and cinnamon and woodsmoke; she was smiling and then she was gone, a whisper, a memory.

I caught my breath and felt tears run cold down my cheeks. Where Jonathan’s hand had rested felt branded.

‘Imara,’ I whispered.
My child
.

He was still next to me, close as a second skin, and his lips were warm at my ear. ‘Djinn can be born only out of death.’

‘So why are you keeping me alive, then?’ I wiped at the tears, angry. He took a step back.

‘Not human death. Not powerful enough.’

I felt a cold flash, and said, ‘The death of a Djinn?’

No answer. Just that look from him, unexpectedly unguarded.

‘And not just any Djinn.’

‘No,’ he said. ‘Not just any.’

I felt light-headed and sick, every cut a nuclear fire, every ache another notch on the torture rack. My head throbbed hard and continuously, a strobe light of pain. I was aching and weary, and my hairline-fractured collarbone screamed every time I dared to move it, which now that adrenaline was fading I didn’t even attempt.

I slowly let myself sit down again. ‘You mean David,’ I whispered. ‘David has to die for her to be born. God, I can’t do this.’

‘Can’t what?’ he asked me. ‘Can’t survive? Sure you can. That’s what people do. They survive. It’s the one thing about them I admire.’

‘I want to stop hurting.’ I was cold, wet, exhausted, wrung out. My
daughter
– the daughter I couldn’t have without losing someone else I loved – my daughter had looked superhuman. I wasn’t. ‘I want to be out of this, Jonathan. Let’s end this.’

He nodded, not unkindly. ‘Then get out. Walk away.’

Kevin stepped up again, chin jutting out. ‘Hey! I said I want her
dead
, OK? She’s trying to screw us! Just do it right—’

Jonathan, in a lightning-fast move, reached out and thumped him on the forehead. Just once.