Chill Factor (27 page)

Please
God
, nobody would get it right.

‘He could be great, you know. If anyone cared enough to show him how.’

Marion was still watching Kevin. I nodded. ‘If nobody kills him first.’

‘See that they don’t.’

The paramedics were working their way around
to us. ‘We need to get out of here,’ I said. ‘Before they get our names.’

Marion nodded. She understood the need for secrecy now, as I did.

‘Better use your Djinn,’ I finished. She looked down at the ground. ‘Marion?’

‘He’s gone,’ she said. ‘He was taken from me five years ago.’

No wonder I’d never seen him. ‘Why? What happened?’

She heaved in a silent breath. ‘He was stolen from me.’

‘And you never told…’ No, of course she hadn’t. Losing a Djinn was practically a hanging offence in the upper ranks of the Wardens. It was something you kept quiet while you got your bottle back, and your life with it. You were supposed to
die
before losing your Djinn. Oh, it happened – bottles broke, bottles were lost in catastrophes – but there were penalties, and very few replacements.

‘I was told,’ Marion said softly, ‘that if I reported it, they’d torture him. I believed it.’

I wanted to ask a million questions, but this wasn’t the time or the place. Too exposed. My skin kept crawling, trying to feel the non-existent pressure of a laser sight.

I felt a hand on my arm, and turned.

Jonathan.
God
! I’d forgotten all about him…

He had on his most rigid, focused expression.
‘Not much time,’ he said. ‘He found the bottle. Listen, I’ll delay him as much as I can. You know where to find him—’

‘What the hell are you talking about? I don’t understand!’ I grabbed for Jonathan’s shoulder, made a fist out of the black fabric of his shirt, and tried to pull him closer. It was like trying to pull a pile of lead. He had the specific gravity of a mountain. ‘Tell me what’s happening, dammit, and no goddamn Djinn evasion!’

His dark eyes glittered and went to narrow slits. ‘I’ve been claimed. You
know
this guy! We’re going to fant—’

Blip
. He was gone, instantly gone in mid-syllable. I caught a flicker of something in his eyes – impotent rage, maybe a tiny flash of fear – and I sucked in a startled breath. I spun around, hard, and plunged back towards the casino, where emergency workers were swarming like hornets. Marion wrapped her arms around me and dragged me to a stop.

‘No!’ she said sharply. ‘You can’t go back.’

‘I left him! Jonathan’s bottle…have to get it back!’

‘It’s too late.’ She was too strong, and her voice was too compassionate. ‘Someone just commanded him. You can’t get it back.’

‘Son of a
bitch
!’ I sucked in a wet, trembling breath. ‘Let go.
Let go!
’

I wrenched free, but she’d convinced me; when she released me, I stopped trying to bull my way back inside. I’d left Jonathan’s bottle, somehow, some way…how the hell…

I remembered in a blinding flash.

Siobhan, slipping the fallen bottle into her pocket. Me demanding it back.

She’d switched bottles
. And now someone – probably Quinn – had taken it off her corpse. Siobhan had been working for him. Son of a
bitch
, I couldn’t believe that I’d let it slip past me.

Marion raised her head to look, and her face went blank and grim. Eyes like flint, ready to spark.

‘Don’t look now,’ she said, ‘but the cavalry’s arrived.’

I turned my head.

A group of maybe twenty, pushing through the crowd of looky-loos; the one in front was a distinguished-looking older man in a spotless blue suit, with a silk tie in tasteful grey.

Myron Lazlo. Next to him, Charles Ashworth II flourished his ebony cane. No sign of Quinn at all in that pack of grim-faced men (and a few women).

The Ma’at had come to restore the balance.

The Ma’at manhandled Kevin somewhat – impersonally, at least – but Marion and I went willingly. We slipped through the chaos behind the hastily erected disaster barriers, heading for the Luxor. The heat quickly made the blankets unbearable, so we shed them at the first available park bench for the homeless.

I kept a hand clenched on the leather of the purse slung around my body, the other splayed over the still-warm spark of life in my womb. I was carrying too many lives. Too much responsibility.

None of the Ma’at said a word as we headed for the Luxor. We were going against the flow of traffic, everything and everyone moving towards the smoky smudge that marked the Bellagio event. The lobby of the Luxor was deserted, except for a marked security presence who eyed us nervously but waved us past when Lazlo displayed some kind of credentials. Back to the private rooms again, but
to a larger one this time. Ballroom-sized, but with the feel of an old-school gentlemen’s club, the kind without strippers. Lots of dark woods and deep carpets, port and sherry and uniformed butlers in tails.

Their symbol, set in stained glass above the door, was an ankh.

‘Sir.’ The head butler, who looked as severe and professional as any of the Ma’at, headed straight for Lazlo. ‘What do you require?’ British accent, of course. Nothing else would do for a place like this.

‘I think some brandy might be in order. Thank you, Blevins.’

Blevins inclined his head. I wondered what school you attended to learn how to be arrogant and servile at the same time, and still maintain that enormous amount of personal dignity. His eyes – blue as summer skies, startlingly – swept over me, then Marion, then Kevin. He turned on his heel and walked away.

We were led to chairs. Kevin was forcibly planted in one, and held there by a Djinn I remembered. Mr Clean, he of the heroically bare chest, little brocade vest, and puffy trousers, not to mention shaved head and earring. The one that Rahel had taken a bite out of earlier.

He smiled at me with shark teeth. There was no welcome hiding there. ‘I remember you,’ he rumbled. ‘You came looking for trouble before.’

‘I found it,’ I said. He inclined his head.

A solemn voice behind me called my name. ‘Jo.’

I turned, winced at the bite of bruises, and saw Lewis approaching. Or rather, being rolled up to us. He was in a wheelchair now, faded and thin, worse by far than he’d been when I’d been sucked out the window. He was crashing. There were hectic spots of red high in his cheeks, but his hands were trembling and he looked feverish and not altogether sane.

He wasn’t looking at me, even though he’d spoken my name; his eyes were fixed on Kevin, and I didn’t like what I saw there.

‘We come to a turning point,’ said Lazlo solemnly. ‘Boy. It’s time to give back what you stole.’

I could have told him what Kevin would say, so I wasn’t surprised when the kid snapped back, ‘Bite me, Grandpa. I’m not giving up anything.’

‘He no longer has Jonathan,’ I said. All eyes went to me. I straightened my shoulders under the pressure. ‘The bottle’s gone.’

‘Gone?’ Lazlo repeated softly. There was danger in there, hiding in the silky half-whisper.

‘Quinn has it,’ I replied. ‘As you probably know, right? He’s your dog.’

Lazlo shut his eyes wearily.

‘You killed Siobhan!’ Kevin yelled, and tried to get out of the chair to lunge at Lazlo, or anyone else
in reach. I wasn’t sure whom he was directing the accusation towards, but I figured it was probably all of us.

‘I’m afraid we did, but not deliberately.’ Lazlo rubbed his forehead and forced himself back to dignified attention. ‘And I’m afraid we put you in danger as well, Miss Baldwin. It was not our intention.’

‘It’s been Quinn all along,’ I said. ‘Right? Quinn wanted Jonathan. I’ll bet it was his idea to “rescue” me, too, when I first arrived.’

Nobody made a sound. I turned towards Kevin. ‘Quinn put Siobhan in there to try to steal the bottle. Kevin, I think she did like you, but I’m pretty sure Quinn had some kind of hold over her. He was a cop, after all.’ Siobhan had picked up Jonathan’s bottle when I’d dropped it. She’d put it in her pocket. She’d given me back the decoy.

Like I’d noticed from the start: She was a professional.

‘He’s the one who shot Siobhan?’ Kevin asked. His hands were still shaking, but he looked feral now, especially spattered with her blood. Ready to gnaw his own arm off if it would get him a step closer to Quinn. ‘Why? Why would he do that?’

‘Because I ducked,’ I said flatly. I turned towards Lewis, knelt down next to his chair with my arms braced on his knees. ‘He was shooting at me, and it wasn’t about Jonathan. Not that time.’

He looked at me through bleary eyes. ‘Then what?’

‘Question for a question. What’s his first name?’

Someone made a sound halfway between a
huh?
and an
uh-oh, she’s lost her mind
; I didn’t bother to check who. Lewis looked at me with feverish, red-rimmed eyes and said, ‘His name is Detective Thomas Quinn.’

Which wasn’t what I’d expected. It threw me for a second, but then Lazlo cleared his throat. His lips twisted like a man having surgery done with a sharp spoon and no anaesthetic, and he said sourly, ‘Thomas
Orenthal
Quinn.’ Laz was already ahead of the curve. He’d heard my story. He knew.

‘Orry,’ I said. ‘No wonder he wanted me dead. He couldn’t know how much I remembered. He didn’t know whether or not I’d recognise him – I didn’t; it was too long ago, I never really saw his face, but he couldn’t take the chance that I was running some big-time double-crossing game. I think he would have killed me earlier, but he was afraid to do it in the Luxor. Afraid you’d know. He felt better after he heard me tell the story to Ashworth, but he still didn’t trust me. When I ended up over there again, he figured I might have figured it out. Couldn’t have that.’

Jonathan had said it: The lines connected through me. I was the nexus of so many things here, including – especially – this.

Thomas Orenthal Quinn: Orry. Chaz Ashworth III had died taking me to his boss, Orry…and at the time, I’d assumed that Orry’s business had been all about drugs. It probably was, in the beginning. Easy money for both of them.

I’d been right in the same room with the man who’d inhabited my nightmares for years, and I never even knew it. Hell, I’d even
liked
him.

Suddenly the enormity of it crashed down on me…David, turning to ash and shadows; Siobhan, dying in my place; Lewis, dying right now, dying as I watched. I could see it happening. I’d let Jonathan be taken away when I’d had the answer in my hands, because I hadn’t been fast enough or good enough or smart enough to see.

‘Joanne?’ Marion’s voice, Marion’s warm hand on my shoulder. I looked up at her and realised how tired she was. Her Djinn had been taken from her, held ransom for her good behaviour. Quinn had been working the angles for a long, long time.

A cold shiver went down my spine. ‘When did your Djinn disappear?’

‘Five years ago.’ From her expression, I’d bet that Marion could have told me down to the day, hour, minute, and second.

I felt my hands curl into fists.
Five years ago
. ‘How long have the Djinn been disappearing?’

‘In numbers?’ Lewis asked. ‘About six years. Maybe less.’

Since Chaz. Since Orry in the desert.

Since I’d gone into that dark, dark cave and he’d asked me questions.

I felt Lewis take my hand, and despite the weakness I knew was ravaging his body, he managed to squeeze it tight enough to make me wince.

‘David?’ he asked. He read the answer in my eyes. ‘What happened?’

‘Rahel. She…’ My throat threatened to close up when I thought about it. ‘She was after Jonathan. David wouldn’t let her…’ I couldn’t get the rest of it out. It had been a battle nobody else had seen,
could
see, except for me – the Ifrit would have been invisible to most human eyes.

‘Where are they?’

My hand went involuntarily to the leather purse hanging slung around my body. ‘I put David back in his bottle. Rahel…I claimed her. Put her in the bottle Siobhan used to switch for Jonathan.’

Lewis let go of me and held out his hand. ‘Give her to me.’ I started to unzip the purse, then hesitated. ‘Not a whole lot of time left, Jo. Do it.’

I took out the bottle and gave it to him. No sensation one way or another; I hadn’t felt any click of connection with Rahel, and I didn’t feel any loss of it now. But Lewis did, clearly; I saw him suck in a breath and sit up straighter, and for just a second his dulled eyes took on a ferocious gleam.

‘She fed off of Jonathan?’ he asked.

‘Not really sure how much of it was Jonathan and how much was David, but she took a lot.’ I felt my stomach do that slow drop and roll again. ‘David – he’s bad. I don’t know if he’s—’

‘He’s not dead,’ Lewis said. The way he said it, almost dismissively, made me give him a sharp look and want to follow it up with a sharp right hook, except it wouldn’t have exactly been a fair fight. In a tussle between Lewis and a plastic grocery sack, I’d give two to one on the bag.

He opened his fist, and I realised that Siobhan’s blood had transferred from my hand to his; it was smeared in dull red clouds over the bottle. I squinted, because it looked as if those dull red clouds were
moving
. Swirling over the surface of the glass.

Being absorbed.

I felt a fast, hot surge of nausea.
What’s the
matter, Rahel, eating Djinn wasn’t enough for you?
Now you’re snacking on human blood, too?

‘What the hell are you doing?’ I snapped at him, and pulled myself back upright to step away, glaring. He considered the bottle balanced on the palm of his hand for a few seconds, then looked up at me with an unreadable expression.

‘I don’t think I have to do anything. Mazel tov,’ he said, and dropped the bottle to the carpet. Then he levered himself out of the wheelchair, lifted his
foot, and stomped on the glass hard enough to shatter it.

Something pulsed through the room in a silent explosion. It was a ruffle of wind in the real world, a white wave of pure energy in the aetheric; I felt it tug hard inside me as it passed, and the Djinn-child inside of me vibrated like a tuning fork. I instinctively took another step back and covered my stomach with both hands, but the kick I felt wasn’t pain; it was something like delight.

A flash of hot gold from the corner of my eye, and then a shadow, moving…shadow taking form, function, grace. Walking with a loose-limbed stride as she formed herself out of the air, out of legend and memory and power.

Rahel’s hair was short now, the cornrows reduced to an elegant half-inch crop around the perfect noble sculpture of her head. It set off the line of her cheekbones, the full, lush curve of her lips.

Her eyes blazed hot, hot, hot amber.

She was wearing black, which I’d never seen her do. Black silk shirt flowing over her lean, muscular body, showing off just enough curves to make her feminine. Kind of a retro look for her, very seventies. Hip-hugging black pants, wide belt, no-nonsense kick-ass boots.

‘Snow White,’ she said, and the smile looked real. Not exactly comforting, but certainly real. She gave me a slight, significant bow, then turned her
attention to Lewis as he sank back down in his wheelchair. It was sort of a controlled fall. ‘You seem unwell, my friend.’

‘Yeah,’ Lewis croaked. ‘Had better days.’

Rahel reached down and put her hands on either side of his face. Quite a contrast; her skin was a deep blue-black, unsettlingly reminiscent of the hard, glistening shade she’d worn as an Ifrit, and instead of an Ifrit’s diamond-sharp claws she had fingernails again, painted a rich, hot gold.

‘So I see,’ she murmured, staring into his eyes. I couldn’t have held that stare, not for any price. Lewis blinked, but managed not to flinch too much. ‘I have suffered, Lewis. Like you. I understand what it is to lose yourself, to know hunger and pain and rage. I understand what it is to face an eternity of it, without relief.’

‘I’m still human,’ he said. ‘Eternity’s a little shorter for me.’

‘So you think?’ She shook her head a little. ‘Eternity is the same for all things.’

‘Why are you back here?’ I whispered. ‘How did you—’

Rahel’s attention turned my way, but her eyes didn’t. She made her reply directly to Lewis. ‘Because there was death.’

‘
Human
death,’ I said, and then I shut up fast, because I remembered just how Jonathan had become a Djinn in the first place, along with
David…on a battlefield, surrounded by human death. Then the death spreading, spiralling, fuelling a transformation… ‘Death gives life. That’s what Jonathan told me.’ It meant that there might be another way for Imara…no. I couldn’t think about it now. Not now.

‘The power is very strong,’ she said. ‘Though if I had not drawn so much from such powerful sources, I could not have managed it. Human death tipped the scales; it did not balance them.’

She leant very close to Lewis, so close she was inches from kissing him with those lush, glistening lips. ‘I can give you what you need.’

His smile jerked into something oddly humorous. ‘You’re an exhibitionist now?’ His voice had fallen into a silky lower range, resonating in his chest. I knew that tone. It had dropped my knickers on the floor in a lab back in college.

‘Tell me you want it.’ Rahel’s voice had gone into the dark, too, ripe and sexy and barely more than a whisper. ‘Tell me what you will give me for it, my love.’

‘Undying gratitude?’

‘You’ll have to do better than that.’ Her lips just grazed his, and I saw his skin flush redder.

The whole room – the twenty-odd members of Ma’at who had trooped in with us, the silent waitstaff, Marion, Kevin, the muscle-bound security men – we all stood, spellbound, watching
this. I don’t know about anybody else, but I was starting to expect clothes to come off, which would have had the virtue of being completely, wildly inappropriate, and would scandalise the socks off of the Ma’at.

And then Rahel smiled wider. ‘Tell me what you’ll give me.’

‘Freedom,’ Lewis said, and kissed her. Big-time. A hungry, open-mouthed kiss. I heard the shocked gasp go through the room. Butler dude – Blevins? – looked so disapproving that I felt like I’d wandered onto the set of a Merchant Ivory film.