Chill Factor (23 page)

Bop
.

Kevin’s eyes rolled back in his head, and he dropped. Siobhan yelled and went down on her knees next to him, fingertips pressed to his neck, but she needn’t have bothered; Jonathan couldn’t kill his own master. No matter how much he wanted to.

Kevin was sleeping like a baby.

‘We’ll take that up later,’ Jonathan said, and fixed Siobhan with a warning look. ‘Don’t say a word.’

She swallowed a mouthful of curses and ducked away.

I should do something
, I thought. But honestly, what did it all matter, anyway? The kid was going to either get me killed or kill me himself. If he formulated the order right, Jonathan wouldn’t have any choice but to carry it out.

I didn’t have to care about any of this. Jonathan had already told me I could walk away. The Ma’at weren’t my buddies. The Wardens…well, the Wardens hadn’t exactly stepped up to shouldering the burdens. They’d sold me down the river when I most needed their support. And maybe Quinn was
right…maybe the Wardens were corrupt and venal. I’d certainly seen enough of that to make it credible. I’d never taken money to change the weather, but I knew it went on. Rain on some farmland here for an extra sweetener…starve some folks over there to get them to cough up. As chaotic in nature as it all was, who’d know?

Worse…who’d care? Yvette Prentiss had violated every code the Wardens possessed. She’d ignored her duties, abused her stepson, used her Djinn for purposes even the Marquis de Sade might have found repulsive. Had anyone stopped her? No. Not until I made it impossible to ignore.

The Ma’at had some clear ethics – not to be confused with morals – but it was a chilly kind of arrogance, an icy view of the world. Human suffering didn’t even factor into the equations. They concerned themselves with numbers, not faces. I could see why that appealed to Lewis; as caring and vulnerable as he was, numbers must have been an escape from the constant agony of feeling the weight of the world.

But I couldn’t be that. I couldn’t reduce people to numbers and trend lines. Ma’at’s principles said that the forest had to burn, but I’d fight the fire every step, protect every tree, until the smoke choked me or I went up with the rest. That was my nature.
You know what you look like in Oversight?
Goddamn Saint Joan the martyr. You burn real 
bright, Joanne, but you’re burning yourself right
up
. Chaz Ashworth had said that, before I’d started the fight that had killed him and left me in a cave, trapped and wishing I was dead.

You’re burning yourself right up.

I didn’t want to burn anymore. I was entitled to a little not-burning. Just for a while.

I clasped my hands over my stomach, over the tiny spark of potential life that was our child, and mourned something that wasn’t even gone.

I felt a warm hand on my forehead. Not Jonathan’s; his touch didn’t comfort; it seared. This was something easier and gentler.

‘She’s burning up.’ For a second I thought it was Imara’s voice, but then I cracked my tear-caked eyelids and saw it was red-haired Siobhan, perched next to me on the couch in her hussy jeans and cheap shirt and chipped nail polish. She had a fading bruise under one eye, concealed under make-up, and she smelt faintly like sex, as if it had soaked into her clothes. ‘She sick or something?’

‘Or something,’ Jonathan said. He sounded remote. ‘Better get her a blanket.’

Siobhan left, and a few seconds later I felt something heavy and soft settle over my sweating, aching skin. Her hand explored my forehead again. ‘She’s been beat up pretty good,’ she said, with the authority of someone who knew the subject well. ‘Her eyes look funny.’

‘She has a concussion,’ Jonathan said. ‘She’ll live.’

‘Yeah, well, you can’t tell me you couldn’t fix that shit.’ Siobhan sounded scared and mutinous. I felt a quick pulse of alarm and sat up, pulling the blanket close around me for comfort as I did.

Sure enough, Jonathan was giving her the hairy eyeball.

‘I’m fine,’ I said, and sniffed when my nose ran. ‘You got any tissues?’

‘Sure.’ She moved off again, came back toting a white box blooming with pastel sheets. I took a handful, thinking I was going to blow my nose, but then the unpleasant watery feeling let loose with a flood.

Nosebleed. I gasped and put the tissues to my nose, listened to Siobhan talking authoritatively about ice packs and putting my feet up, and watched Jonathan. He never stopped sipping his scotch. Never stopped watching me.

‘You’re not going to make it,’ he said finally, when Siobhan’s fussing had me flat-out on the couch again with ice chilling my nose and my feet propped up on pristine down pillows. ‘You’re not built for this kind of thing anymore. That body’s taken enough abuse. Time to hit the showers.’

I sniffed and swallowed a metallic taste of blood. ‘Don’t snow me, Jonathan. You don’t give a crap about me; you’re worried about Imara. Assuming
Imara isn’t just some little illusion you conjured up out of your bag of tricks.’ I shifted the ice to a less painful angle. ‘How long is Kevin going to sleep?’

‘As long as I want him to.’

Valid answer. ‘Why are you here? Don’t give me any bullshit about the kid. You could run rings around him. You do already. If you didn’t want to be here, you’d be gone.’

He went very still for the space of three or four seconds, then looked down into his drink. Which magically kept refilling. ‘I hear the shows are great.’

‘Why are you here?’ I asked. His dark eyes flashed to me.

‘Don’t play games with me.’ It was an unmistakable warning, followed by a wintry smile. ‘Besides. Philosophy’s really not my strong suit.’

I chickened out on the Rule of Three. ‘Never mind. I already know. Don’t tell me it was because Kevin ordered you to bring him here. You
arranged
for that kid to claim you. You made it easy for him, because you knew it would be simple to do exactly what you’ve done. Manipulate him like Gumby and get whatever you wanted.’ I sucked in a deep breath. Siobhan was sitting on the couch next to me, and I wasn’t entirely sure how much she knew, but knowing Kevin, he’d probably told her everything he knew and lied about a whole lot he didn’t. ‘You’re killing him, you know. Just like you’re killing everything
around you. You need to stop this.’

‘Stop what, exactly?’ he asked mildly.

I was tired, aching, pregnant, and fed up. ‘Jonathan, you look like the kind of guy who gets what he wants, and damn the consequences. Which is why you and Kevin are a match made in heaven. Look, I know why you’re on a crusade. Lewis told me about the missing Djinn. You’re using Kevin to suck power out of everything and everyone around us to try to find them, but more power won’t do it. This isn’t a situation that calls for a bigger hammer.’

‘I suppose
you
know what it calls for.’

I moved the ice pack from my nose to my throbbing forehead. ‘Not a friggin’ clue. Why, should I?’

For answer, Jonathan took me up on the aetheric. It wasn’t like what had happened when the Ma’at had dragged me up, kicking and screaming; this was more like he made the aetheric descend to us. I never even moved, and yet suddenly everything was in that deep Oversight colour palette, ringed in translucent shell-like auras. Siobhan turned to a shadow, sparkling with jealous-green and envy-red; she looked positively festive. Kevin was…nothing. A hole in the aetheric through which energy poured, draining into Jonathan. Dispersing… elsewhere.

That wasn’t what he was trying to show me. As I watched, Jonathan dipped his fingers into shadow
and tugged, revealing thin spider webs of lines. Lines that ran from several different directions…and connected to me.

‘What…?’ I reached down to touch one, but my aetheric fingers passed right through it. I could barely see it, and I was pretty sure that was because Jonathan was allowing me to see it. It wasn’t anything humans were equipped to sense…or, I thought, Djinn.

‘Everything connects,’ he said. ‘The important thing is
who
connects, and when, and why. And the missing Djinn? They connect to you. I never knew that until I saw you here.’

‘How?’ I asked, mystified. He shrugged.

‘You tell me.’

Another eyeblink, and the aetheric disappeared, melting into the expensive luxury of Kevin’s stolen suite. Outside the windows, thunder rumbled.

‘The lines connect to you,’ he said. ‘You know where my Djinn are.’

I sat up, felt my nosebleed threaten to start up, and went flat again, ice pack in place. ‘I don’t.’

‘Do.’

‘Don’t,’ I said definitely. ‘Look, if I’d seen a whole bunch of bottles lying around someplace, don’t you think I would have said something?’

I happened to be looking at the bar, with its gleaming ranks of scotch and gin and tequila, with its crystal glitter of glasses catching the light.

If I’d seen a whole bunch of bottles lying
around…

‘Holy shit,’ I murmured. I sat up, headache forgotten, nosebleed forgotten; the ice pack thumped to the carpet.

If I’d seen a whole bunch of bottles…

Goddamn. Pretty smart, kiddo.

‘Wake him up,’ I said. Jonathan frowned, put aside his drink, and stood up as I did. ‘Wake him up right now!’

He didn’t do anything that I could see, but Kevin groaned and flopped and came upright with a jerk. Siobhan got up and teetered over on her high-heeled hooker shoes to his side; he grabbed her hand and held it, and for a second I saw the scared kid under the surly adolescent.

‘He knocked you out,’ Siobhan told him. ‘I told him it was a mistake. You should punish him.’

Kevin groped her thigh awkwardly. She hauled him to his feet, and he put his arm around her and faced Jonathan squarely.

‘Don’t do that again,’ he said. His jaw muscles flickered, trying to hold back anger or fear. ‘I mean it. I’ll put you back in your bottle and I’ll toss it in the nearest sewer, I will, I swear.’

I looked at Jonathan, who shrugged. ‘Hey, you’re the one who wanted to wake him up. I guess you have a reason.’

I did. I hugged the blanket closer around my
shoulders and walked over to Kevin and Siobhan. He took up a defensive stance and – how weird was this? – moved the girl behind him. Kevin, the knight in slightly tarnished armour.

His eyes darted from me to Jonathan and back. I must have looked fierce…bruised, bloody, wild-eyed, wrapped in a blanket like some Red Cross rescue. He opened his mouth to order Jonathan to do something, then gave it up with a visible effort. Smart kid. Starting to realise just how little owning and operating a Djinn of Jonathan’s quality was doing to help him in the first place.

‘I need to talk to you,’ I said to the kid. ‘In the bedroom. You.’ I pointed at Jonathan. ‘You stay here.’

He gave me that thin little look that clearly said,
Make me
. All righty then.

‘Make him,’ I said crisply to Kevin, who flinched, but nodded.

‘Yeah,’ he agreed. ‘Back in the bottle.’

Jonathan had a lot of power, but that was one command he couldn’t resist.
Whoosh
. Vapour. Gone.

‘And don’t come out until I say so!’ Kevin called after him.

‘You ought to cork the bottle.’

‘And show you where it is? Blow me.’

‘You wish.’ I sighed. I trailed blanket all the way over to the bedroom door, opened it, and stepped
into Shangri-la. ‘Oooooh,’ I said, and rubbernecked. ‘I could get used to this.’

It was a palace. Space, expansive views (of clearing skies), carpet so thick and glorious it begged to be petted. A huge fantasy of a bed, heavily rumpled, with thick down pillows dented and disarranged. The entertainment centre had a plasma TV. It was on mute, but it was tuned to a sex channel…I cleared my throat and walked over to hit the power on the remote.

‘Hey!’ Kevin protested.

‘Trust me, you’re not missing any plot points.’ I nodded across the room to a small grouping of elegant gilt-and-brocade chairs. Two were covered with piles of newspapers and room-service trays with half-eaten burgers. ‘Mind making a hole? I’m a little under the weather.’

As jokes went, it was weak, and besides, neither of them got it, but Kevin shoved newspapers out of the way and Siobhan piled trays off on another piece of furniture – some kind of priceless antique that would have had dealers weeping at the abuse. I made sure the blanket cushioned the chair, and let myself relax.

A little.

‘You know I’m not going to hurt you,’ I said to Kevin. ‘Number one, well, I can’t. You’re too powerful, and besides, I’m too damn tired.’

‘You can leave,’ he said. Being – for Kevin –
magnanimous. ‘I’ll let you walk out. Just go.’

‘That’s nice, but if I go, so does your last hope for getting out of this thing alive. Those people out there, they’re not going away. You’re not going anywhere, because they’ve got this place locked down, and even though you’ve got Jonathan, you have to know that he’s got his own thing going.’ I watched his eyes, and saw the flash of resentment and fear in them. ‘You’re a means to an end, Kev. Have you tried to leave Las Vegas?’

He didn’t answer. Siobhan did. ‘Once,’ she said. He frowned at her, but she ignored him. ‘He told that guy to get us out of here, but then there was this whole debate. It was stupid. I told him so.’

Jonathan didn’t want to leave, and if he didn’t want to, Kevin had very little understanding of how to make him. Hell, Kevin hadn’t even been able to control
me
, and it wasn’t as if I were the most difficult of Djinn, back when I’d been all floaty. He was completely out of his depth.

‘These people are going to kill you.’ I didn’t pull any punches. There wasn’t really any time. ‘It won’t be like the movies, Kevin – it won’t be some big blaze of glory, some badass villain ending. They’ll just kill you, and then walk through your blood to get what they want. I can’t stop them unless you help me.’

‘Jonathan will—’

‘Jonathan,’ I cut him off, ‘will do just as Jonathan
sees fit, and if you’re not useful to him anymore, kiss your ass goodbye. Get me?’

He didn’t want to, but he got me. Kevin played with a frayed hole in his jeans, glared at me from under a fringe of ragged, unwashed hair, and didn’t seem to notice that his hooker girlfriend was rubbing his back for comfort. I took a second to scan her over more closely, then took a good hard look up on the aetheric.