Chill Factor (29 page)

Silence. She didn’t answer me. Alice did, little-girl Alice with her neon-blue eyes and ancient smile.

‘She can’t,’ Alice said. ‘She was healed because she took power from the stronger, and because of the death. There’s no one here stronger than Rahel now. And no death.’

‘I could arrange that.’ I glowered at Lazlo, who raised his eyebrows fastidiously.

‘It wouldn’t matter,’ Alice said. ‘You need Jonathan, and he would have to give of himself.’

Rahel nodded. ‘I will go with you to retrieve him. He can’t remain in the hands of a…’ She made a face and said a word in Djinn. A few of the other Djinn looked shocked. Alice actually blushed.

Whatever. ‘Good. Anybody else want in on this?’

The Djinn looked at each other. One by one, they voted silently with their disappearances, until all
that were left were Ashan, that cold bastard, and Alice.

Ashan gave me an utterly sub-zero stare and said, ‘I will hold you responsible if you fail,’ and then he was gone.

Alice gave me a wide-eyed regretful look, shrugged, and skipped off into the shadows.

So much for Djinn loyalty, apparently.

‘Fine. Me and Rahel.’ I levelled a finger at Lazlo, who was conferring quietly with two more of the Ma’at. ‘Yo! Laz!’ He didn’t respond immediately. When he did, he turned towards me with a genteel frown, as if I’d made some sort of rude biological noise. ‘I’m going after Quinn. Who have you got?’

‘I’m going,’ Marion said immediately. ‘You’ll need me.’

‘You’re in. Thanks.’ I waited for Lazlo to step up to the plate. ‘C’mon, man. He’s your guy; don’t you think you ought to at least come along? Maybe present a nice distraction while I find a way to take him down?’

Lazlo retained his dignity, even in the face of my sarcasm. I didn’t consider that a positive.

‘Detective Quinn has been of assistance to the Ma’at from time to time, but only as an associate,’ he said. ‘We encountered him several years ago when he helped save one of our members. Since then, he’s been very useful to us in keeping tabs on the movements of Wardens through this area, and
also in locating and freeing Djinn from imprisonment. But he’s got little or no power of his own, and we don’t see him as a functioning member of our organisation.’

‘Really.’ My voice had gone flat. ‘Don’t hurt yourself, covering your ass like that. The Ma’at are in this up to their necks. Sure, Quinn was in with Chaz, smuggling drugs, back in the day, but then Quinn discovered something more interesting. How much would a Djinn in the bottle be worth on the black market, Laz? Millions, to the right rich bastard. Even a regular human can use them – not as effectively as a Warden, but they’d be pretty damn cool toys.’ I glanced over at Kevin, thinking involuntarily of his stepmother. ‘You guys made him your enforcer, right? When you heard about Djinn that you might be able to retrieve and set free, you sent him out to “rescue” them. How often did he fail?’

Lazlo looked unsettled. ‘Failure was expected. No one can retrieve every—’

‘How many times did he come back empty-handed?’

Silence. And then Ashworth said, ‘At least twenty in the last few years.’

Marion indicated Lewis. ‘What about the ones Lewis took when he left the Wardens? Where did they go?’

Left
was euphemistic, at best.
Escaped with his 
life
might have been a little more accurate, but I held my tongue. Wasn’t Marion’s fault that she had the job of getting rid of the Wardens’ most dangerous problems. In fact, I was happier that she had it than anyone else I’d ever met; at least she was fair, gentle, and strong. Nobody liked an incompetent executioner.

‘Freed,’ I said on his behalf. ‘Lewis set them free himself because he doesn’t believe in keeping Djinn as slaves.’

And then I realised what I’d just told her. What she’d witnessed, here in this room.

She
knew
that Djinn could exist outside of the bottles, now…that they could live on their own terms, with power and significance. That they could interact with us freely.

Just what I
didn’t
want the Wardens to know.

Only Marion hadn’t exactly looked shocked.

‘You already knew about the Free Djinn?’ I asked. She inclined her head. ‘How?’

‘I’d be a fool if I didn’t.’

‘Does anyone else—’

I got her warm smile. ‘There are many fools wearing the symbol of the Wardens. You ought to know that, Joanne. Truthfully, they’re so caught up in their own lives, I doubt they notice much else. The world is full of secrets, anyway. Most people see what they want to see, and nothing more. I sometimes think it’s the secret to sanity.’

The Ma’at were buzzing around me. Lazlo was saying something, fairly loudly, about the Ma’at not being soldiers, which was true enough; I didn’t hold it against them. Besides, I wasn’t absolutely sure I trusted any of them to have my back, not against Quinn. He’d been part of their organisation for too long for them to disavow him now.

Rahel was watching me, arms folded. Smiling.

‘Well?’ I asked. ‘Just the three of us?’

‘Four,’ said a new voice. Lewis levered himself out of the chair, took a second to get his balance, and walked towards us. Around him, the Ma’at’s frantic discussion fell silent. ‘I’m going.’

‘You can’t—’ Charles Ashworth began querulously, then shut his mouth with a snap when Lewis cut a look his way. ‘Fine. Kill yourself, then. For my part, I’m finished with this nonsense.’

He turned and walked away, flourishing that damn cane to shove people out of his way. Rahel evidently thought by her grin that this was the best entertainment she’d had in years. She got in his path and blocked the door. They played a silent game of keep-away until Ashworth decided his dignity was worth more than a dramatic exit, and tried to look like it was his own idea to stay.

‘That is, if you want me to go,’ Lewis said dryly, and I realised that I hadn’t acknowledged the effort it had taken for him to rise and walk. Maybe his pride was hurt. I hadn’t exactly come over to weep
on his collar about how glad I was he’d survived.

I
was
, in fact, glad, but damn if I was going to show it now. There was work to be done.

‘Depends. You going to fall over?’ I demanded. He had his own cane in hand. It was starting to look like as much of an affectation as Ashworth’s.

‘Why? You going to catch me?’

‘I never could resist a fainting hero,’ I said. As a gift horse, he was pretty creaky, but the colour in his face was better, and I could feel that soothing vibration coming from him again, the one that made me feel all was right with the world in his presence. I experimentally reached out and touched his hand.

Zap
. Blue sparks jumped. We both made faces and put more space between us. Things were definitely back to normal – electricity and that deceptive, seductive burning in my skin from his touch that had nothing to do with current taking the path of least resistance. I wouldn’t be sharing any beds with Lewis again soon, no matter how innocent the intention. Couldn’t totally guarantee my own willpower.

‘So that’s it? The four of us?’ The Ma’at were taking themselves off as quickly as the Djinn had done…if in a less ethereal manner. A few younger ones were hanging around, mostly fascinated by the spectacle of enemy Wardens in their midst (I still couldn’t bring myself to think of Lewis as Ma’at,
even though I knew he was), not to mention the magnificence of Rahel in her sleek black silk.

‘Five,’ Kevin said. His voice cracked on the word.

We all looked at the kid, then at each other. ‘Not like I’m joining up or anything. It’s just…he killed Siobhan. And you can’t leave me here. With them.’

Whether it had been true love or not, there was suffering in Kevin’s eyes. An awareness of something beyond himself, even if it had just been for one other person in the world.
Even
psychopaths can love
. I couldn’t remember who’d said it, but it seemed applicable.

We reached a sort of silent consensus,
à la
Ma’at, and Lewis said, ‘Stick close to me, kid.’

Kevin’s never-flat hackles rose. ‘So you can what, suck the rest of me dry?’ We all stared at him. He flushed. ‘You know what I meant.’

‘Well,
I
meant stick with me because Quinn’s going to see you as the biggest threat, since he’ll think you’ve still got my powers,’ Lewis said. ‘I plan to use you as a human shield.’

Kevin eyed him. ‘Yeah?’

‘Would I lie to you? Besides, you kicked the crap out of me, kid. I’m still weak. I need the support.’ Oh, clever Lewis. The one thing Kevin craved and never got…respect. Responsibility.

Kevin tried not to look impressed. ‘Yeah, OK. Whatever.’

Marion sent me a clear you-trust-him? look. My
feelings for Kevin were too complicated to put into squints and eyebrow moves, so I just deadpanned. Truth was, I suspected Jonathan felt something for the kid, too, and that would help us. Quinn had a lot of liabilities he didn’t yet understand.

‘Stupid question,’ Marion said apologetically, ‘but exactly where will we find him? We can’t track the Djinn, not even Jonathan. Unless you…?’ She addressed it to Rahel. Rahel shook her head. ‘OK, then how do we find him?’

‘Jonathan told us,’ I said.

She looked mystified. ‘He was cut off in mid-word.’

‘Doesn’t matter. I know what he was trying to tell me.’ I turned to Ashworth, who was glaring at me with undisguised contempt. We weren’t mending any fences, I sensed. Not that I was worried about it much. ‘Your son’s house,’ I said. ‘Fantasy Ranch. The one in White Ridge. Do you still own it?’

‘No,’ he said, and turned to go. Rahel blocked him again. Glaring ensued.

‘Who bought it?’

Ashworth’s hand tightened on the cane; I watched the knuckles go white. ‘I’m sure you already know,’ he said.

‘Thomas Orenthal Quinn.’ I didn’t have the slightest doubt. ‘Keeping it all in the family.’

‘I never liked the slippery bastard.’ Ashworth kept walking, cane stabbing carpet. ‘Go and be
damned. Do me the courtesy not to die in my son’s house, if you please.’ This time Rahel stepped aside and let him exit with dignity intact.

White Ridge. Fantasy Ranch. Orry.

I was going back into my worst nightmare, but at least this time, I wasn’t going alone.

Rahel, not being claimed anymore, couldn’t jump us magically from one place to another. A drawback, but not a huge one…I didn’t think that Quinn could use Jonathan to do any transportation, either.
I’ll delay
him as long as I can
,
Jonathan had said, before he’d been yanked out of the world. I grabbed Myron Lazlo, who was having some sort of old-guys meeting in the corner of the room that seemed devoted to snuffboxes and cigars and brandy. Literally. By the arm. He didn’t take it well, but I’d come to realise that manhandling the Ma’at was a whole lot less dangerous than taking on a militant Warden. Ashworth had caned me pretty handily, back in the lobby of the Luxor, but Lazlo had done nothing but called one of the associated Free Djinn to take care of me.

Lazlo just retained his personal dignity and shrugged free of my grip.

‘Yes?’ he asked neutrally. ‘I’ve already made it clear, the Ma’at will not—’

‘Provide transportation? Think again. We need to get to White Ridge. What’ve you got?’

He frowned at me for a full thirty seconds, then said, ‘Are you asking me for the loan of a vehicle?’

‘No, Laz, I’m telling you that I’m taking a couple of cars. You pick which ones, but the faster the better.’ Warmth registered near my back. Lewis, Marion, Kevin, and Rahel had tagged along with me, to lend support. Lazlo’s eyes skipped over them, unreadably, and focused back on me. ‘Time’s wasting. He’s your mess, in case you forgot, which means you’re just as bad a judge of character as I am.’

‘I liked him,’ I said. It burnt me to admit it, made parts of me flutter uneasily as memory reasserted itself. Darkness, pain, violation. I’d looked him in the eyes and I hadn’t recognised him, not even the capacity for violence. I’d trusted him, like a complete brainless moron. ‘Cars, Laz.’ I snapped my fingers.

Behind me, Rahel murmured, ‘I believe you’ll find them outside at the valet stand.’

‘Oh?’

Lazlo’s face shut down hard. ‘Take what you’d like. We’ll speak of this when you return.
If
any of you return. I don’t give you very good odds. He’ll know you’re coming, of course. By now, he will know that his attempt to silence you failed.’

I waited for him to wish me luck. He didn’t.

I turned and led the way out to the lobby. It was still mostly deserted, thanks to the excitement over Bellagio way, and we walked straight out the doors, past Ma’at security, to the covered portico where uniformed valets waited. They were clustered together, nervously gossiping, but sprang into action when we approached.

‘Rahel?’

She pointed to two matching Dodge Vipers. One was a deep, glistening midnight blue, flirting in the sunlight; the other was silver.

I knew the blue one. She was unmistakable.

‘Mona?’ I felt stupid asking it, but Marion nodded. ‘You had David bring it with you when you came here?’

‘I thought we might need it,’ she said. ‘And he knew it would please you. I confess, I thought it would be to make a quick escape, not to go riding off to…whatever we’re riding off to…’

‘And the silver one?’

Rahel buffed her talons on her shirt. ‘It wasn’t being used.’ She opened her palm and dropped keys into my hand. I tried to hand them back, but she stepped away with an expression of distaste. ‘I do not
drive
.’

It was, apparently, a Djinn thing; David had claimed not to, either, but he’d come around when I’d needed him to. I tossed both sets of keys in the
air, thinking, and then underhanded one set to Marion. The silver car.

‘Take Rahel and Kevin,’ I said. ‘Rahel, watch out for trouble.’ I didn’t look at Kevin, but I didn’t think I needed to. Her hot amber eyes glowed just a little brighter. ‘Marion—’

‘I’ll watch out for it, too.’ Neither one of us trusted Rahel completely either; I could see the acknowledgement of it in her serene face. I wouldn’t have trusted anyone but Marion to shepherd those two. ‘How fast are we driving?’

I stepped out from the thick shade into the molasses-thick glare of the Las Vegas sun and walked to the driver’s side of the blue Viper. It was too hot to put my hand on the blue finish, but I held it a couple of inches above the blazing metal. Petting her was almost irresistible.

‘What?’ I asked absently. Marion, unlocking the silver Viper, repeated the question. I looked across the car at Lewis, who had opened the passenger side.

I laughed, and said, ‘Just try to keep up.’ It sounded hollow, felt worse. I should have felt free, opening the driver’s-side door and easing into Mona’s comfortable seat, feeling the potential of her ignite at the turn of the key. Cars had always made me feel safe. Powerful.

But I was driving this one into the past, and that was one place I didn’t want to go.

What surprised me was that I hadn’t recognised his voice. Not recognising his body or face, sure, that was understandable; the only clear look I’d ever had at Orry was that morning in the desert, and it had been fifteen seconds long, at a distance, with a baseball cap shadowing his face and panic jittering my focus.

But the voice. I should have recognised the voice.

When the shadow in the dark grabbed me in the caves and held me underwater, I’d honestly thought that I was dead. Coming awake again in the darkness, I still thought I was dead; combine the trauma with the heat exhaustion and dehydration, not to mention the head injury, and dead was what I probably should have been.

Instead, I opened my eyes in the dark and for a few seconds there was nothing, nothing but the drip of water and the sound of my own heart slowly, steadily working its way towards death, one beat at a time.

I licked dry lips – even though there was water beaded on them, they felt dry and painfully cracked – and whimpered as pain stabbed through my head. I tried to pull in a deep breath, but it gurgled in my lungs, and I coughed.

Coughing with a head injury, not recommended. My head exploded in pulsations of white agony, and I couldn’t stop hacking. By the time I stopped I was huddled in a sitting position, my back against what
felt like wood. It creaked when I moved against it. My chest was on fire, but that was nothing compared to the complete devastation of my headache. I carefully leant my skull back against the wooden boxes, in the hope that not moving it anymore would help the nauseating throbbing to settle down. I had both hands clutching my temples, but that didn’t seem to be helping – it felt like it was holding the pain inside – so I let them fall back into my lap. The air tasted damp and cool. Not a breath of wind.

I heard the scrape of footsteps. My first thought was to call for help, but my second was a memory of being held underwater, and I kept still. I stared into the dark – which was complete – and saw nothing. Not a flicker of light.
Maybe I’m blind
. That was a freak-inducing thought that I tried to put well behind me.

The sound of someone coming got louder. Pebbles rattled. He must have misstepped once; I heard someone curse softly – male voice – and there was some scuffling that sounded like things being rearranged. Metal, maybe, dragged over rock. Tough to say.

I was still trying to figure out which direction the footsteps were coming from when he flicked on a flashlight, and I was hit squarely by a rush of light so bright it felt like he’d set my eyeballs on fire. I screamed and covered my eyes, turned my face away, but even then I could see the halogen
flare, burning bright red on my eyelids.

He’d meant to do that, just in case. He wanted me blind and disoriented.

I felt something grab my foot and drag me suddenly forward; I was able to save my head from smacking into the rock, which might very well have killed me, and then there was a weight astride me, a belt buckle digging painfully into my stomach as he leant forward. The light was still in my face. I couldn’t see him at all.

‘Open your eyes,’ he said. I couldn’t have, even if I’d wanted to; I was already crying from the blaze of fight. I tried to bat the flashlight away, and he grabbed both my hands in one of his and slammed them back to the stone. The light loomed closer, blood-red on the other side of my eyelids, like a giant blazing eye. ‘Open your eyes!’

I tried. I think I must have managed to get them open just a little, because I heard him say, ‘Blue. Huh. I’d have bet they were brown.’

He didn’t sound crazy. In fact, he sounded very normal, as if we were standing at a cocktail party with our little drinks, making small talk. As if he hadn’t just tried to drown me and killed another woman and was kneeling on my chest with a light in my eyes.

‘What’s your name, sweetheart?’ he asked. I could almost see him smiling, saluting me with a martini.

No reason to lie. ‘Joanne.’ My voice sounded weak and fractured. Nothing like what I wanted it to be. ‘You already know that.’

‘Smart girl. Indeed I do know. Chaz told me.’ He leant over closer. That made it harder to breathe. I coughed again, and couldn’t help a sobbing moan when the headache dug claws deeper. ‘You’re in sad shape, Joanne. Wish I could say that I was here to help you out, but you already know that’s not true, eh?’ I felt a sharp sting as he slapped me to keep me focused. ‘Eh?’

I nodded.

‘What did Chaz tell you? Oh, by the way, I saw what you did out there. Very impressive. Chaz tells me most of you can do that by yourselves, right?’ He bent very close, close enough that I smelt aftershave and a hint of herbal shampoo. ‘Without a
Djinn
. That how you say it?
Djinn
?’

‘I don’t know what you’re talking about.’ It didn’t matter. He wasn’t a Warden. When I went up on the aetheric – I could barely catch a glimpse of it in Oversight now – I saw no power in him. No potential. He was as absolutely normal as the guy next door. ‘I don’t know what that is.’

‘You don’t have one.’ He sounded definite about it. ‘Chaz didn’t have one, either. Guess it’s just the really high ups that get them, huh? Or…the ones who need them? Out in the middle of nowhere, storm central? Places that get out of control quick?’

He was too close to the truth. There were more Wardens with Djinn in trouble spots; half of the ones in Oklahoma and Kansas were equipped, and an even greater portion of the ones in California. He understood an awful lot more than he should have.

Starting with the fact that there were Wardens. ‘Chaz told you,’ I whispered.

The flashlight switched off. It was like being doused with cold water in the desert – sweet, shocking relief. Felt like the darkness was a place of safety, a place to hide, even though I knew better. I heard the soft sound of plastic and metal on stone as he set it aside.

‘Chaz told
you
things,’ he said. ‘About me. Blabbed his stupid head off. Right?’

I didn’t answer. Saving my breath for the screaming part.

‘This is going to go better if you just tell me now. The end’s the same, but like the Chinese say, it’s the journey that counts.’

‘He told me you were running drugs,’ I said. ‘That other Wardens went along with it. Look, I was going to take the money. I’ll still take it. You don’t have to kill me.’

‘Honey, I wish I knew that for sure, because I kinda like you. You don’t fold under pressure, and that’s a gift.’ He straightened up and let go of my hands. I didn’t try to hit him; there was no
percentage in it yet. He still had me pinned. ‘No, I figure you…you’d take the money and run right back to your little friends, and next thing you know, I’m out of business. Can’t have that.’

I was too weak to really use my powers, but I had one advantage: He didn’t know it. I concentrated hard, readying myself. I wasn’t going to get a lot of opportunities, and I’d better act fast and with perfect timing when one came.

‘Tell me about the Djinn,’ he said. ‘Chaz didn’t know much, or at least he said he didn’t. It’s interesting.’

‘It’s a myth,’ I said. ‘It’s a TV show. He was putting you on.’

‘Oh, I don’t think so, because I asked him with lots of nice folding money. You, unfortunately, money won’t do it. I’ll have to be more persuasive.’ I heard something metallic tap the rock. ‘You know what that is?’

It could have been anything. A nail file. A ring. A bottle opener. ‘Knife,’ I whispered. ‘It’s a knife.’

‘Good memory.’ Suddenly the sharp edge of it was under my chin, pressing, and I felt myself start squirming. I couldn’t help it. My body wanted to get away so badly that it refused to listen to reason and stay still. ‘Here’s how this works, Joanne. You tell me what I want to know, and you never even feel this knife move. You
don’t
tell me, and this knife knows how to do
things the hard way, the slow way. Get me?’

‘Yes.’ I was sweating. I couldn’t afford to sweat. My brain felt slow and stupid, desperate for moisture. There was so much around me, in the air…and I couldn’t reach it.

‘Now answer my question.’

‘You haven’t asked one,’ I heard myself say.

‘What?’ The knife moved at my throat, pressed harder. I squeaked. ‘You playing with me, honey? Because you won’t like the way I like to play.’

‘They’re Djinn,’ I whispered breathlessly. ‘They live in bottles.’

‘What kind of bottles?’