Chill Factor

"Definitely... Ah, quick question, but do you know where David is-"



"Still in the hands of your friends," she said. "I can help you no more. I must feed to regain my power."



I grabbed her hand, and quickly let go. It didn't feel right. It sure didn't feel as smooth and soft as it looked. "Wait. You can't, Rahel, you know that it'll wear off. You have to know of a way to cure yourself. Don't you?"



Hot, predatory eyes met mine, and I had a very hard time holding the stare. She growled out, "No. I will exist in this form, feeding from others, or I will die. Your doing. Yours and David's."



I remembered the last time I'd seen her; like most of the Free Djinn, she'd been trapped by the contamination in the aetheric, poisoned by pretty little blue sparklies that had eaten her from the inside. I'd watched her die, or at least I'd believed so at the time. Her disintegration had looked more like being digested than just temporarily banished.



Okay, great, she was holding a grudge. Not good, but then, she'd just saved my life... at least temporarily.



She took my silence for agreement. "There will be an accounting. For all of those who are brought down."



"But not now," I said. Without realizing it, I'd started rubbing my chest, over my heart. "Right?"



Long, long stare. I broke out in goose bumps, but didn't let her see it, hopefully.



"We will speak of it," she said softly. "If you survive."



"Doing okay so far." It came out sarcastic. I swallowed my reflexive need to strike out. "Rahel, thank you. Thank you for my life."



She regarded me without blinking, then turned and plucked a bright yellow flower from a nearby plant. The broken stem oozed clear blood; she licked it away contemplatively, fastened the flower in her glossy black hair, and gave me a smile that betrayed razor-sharp teeth.



"You're welcome, Snow White," she said. "But don't get too comfortable in your new skin. You may not have it for long."



I held myself very still. She circled slowly around me, walking as gracefully as a tiger, watching me all the while. Sunlight caught in the amber beads at the ends of her cornrows, and glinted on an Egyptian ankh worn around her neck. Soft gold, with a look of antiquity to it. The Djinn were such an odd mix of old and new, like Socrates on a skateboard. "Your enemy is coming."



"Which one?" That sounded flippant; I hadn't meant it to. I mean, it wasn't like I just had the one anymore. Lewis, oh, God, what the hell deal did you make, and what devil did you make it with...?



Rahel grabbed hold of my shoulder, leaned closer, then shivered as if she'd been caught in a mortally cold wind. The shape of her changed, hardened, grew cold, then snapped back into focus, into defiant neon yellow and elegant, tall lines. Into flawless skin and the eyes of a predator, glittering with urgency. "Your enemy is coming. Listen to me, Snow White. The Djinn need you. You must not trust..."



Her lips were still moving, but what was coming out was just noise: a kind of grinding, growling screech, fading into silence. Despair sparked once in her expression, and then she blurred like an out-of-focus projection and turned dark, glistening, cold.



Nightmarish and spidery.



I yanked my hand away and jumped back, driven by memories of what it had been like to fight an Ifrit, but she didn't come after me. Humans didn't classify as food for something like her. She just... faded away.



"Rahel?" I looked around. Filtered sunlight, glossy green leaves, the whisper of flowers and fountains. I turned in a slow circle, stunned by the beauty, by the loss, by the enormity of what I was supposed to accomplish. Just surviving seemed like a heavy load, right about now.



A family of five passed me, consulting maps and pointing in more directions than a compass. They crowded the gazebo for a picture. I had to wait for them to clear the path. I fumbled the key card to my complimentary suite out of my skirt pocket and wished to hell I'd actually thought to slip a credit card in there... or cash...



I felt a surge of power zip along my spine, smelled ozone, and got up, fast. Something was coming my way, and it wasn't good.



Your enemy is coming, Rahel had said. Looked like he was almost here. I cast about for someplace to go, realized it would be pointless, considering who I was up against, and decided to stand my ground.



A blue static spark jumped from the wrought-iron bench across six inches of empty space, and zapped me just as the hum of insect and bird activity in the conservatory went still.



The earth stopped breathing, or at least it stopped where I was, as Kevin Prentiss wandered into the building. He saw me, paused for a few seconds, then stuck his hands in his jeans pockets and sauntered my way. Funny, becoming king of the world hadn't changed the kid much. He was still plain, acned, surly, shaggy, and badly dressed. From the aroma that wafted my direction-sweat and sour clothes and desperation-he hadn't taken personal hygiene to heart, either. He was wearing a hooded gray sweatshirt over a T-shirt that read, partially obscured, uck you, with a one-fingered illustration. His sneakers-red Keds-looked battered almost beyond recognition. Greasy too-long blue jeans with the hems torn out sagged around his shoetops.



He stopped about ten feet away. Gunfighting distance.



"Been wondering when you'd show up," he said. "Where's your boy toy?" Meaning David.



That stung. I had a hard time keeping my voice even. "I'm alone."



"How'd you get in?" Kevin jammed his hands in the pockets of his sweatshirt and made belligerent fists in the fabric. "Shouldn't have been able to. Nobody can get in who's like you."



"You mean Wardens? The Wardens can't get in?"



"Just the ones in Vegas here before me." He shrugged. "Thought this place'd be fun. It's kinda boring. I mean, it's cool and all, but... I wanted to be away from all of you, and you just keep on coming after me. I mean, what did I do to you?"



Besides wrecking the Wardens' vault and screwing around with powers he didn't understand? "I guess they're worried you're out of control, Kevin."



"I'm not."



"And then there's Yvette," I said slowly. "Who's dead."



Kevin's eyes flew up to meet mine, wide and defenseless, and I saw the memory unfold in them. He'd done that. He'd ordered her killed, and he hadn't flinched.



He was flinching now.



"Bitch deserved it," he said. It sounded tough, but it was all 'tude. He had a huge amount of power, and nobody could tell him what to do... but he was alone. More alone than anyone I'd ever seen. "You'd better not cross me, yo?"



"Yo." I spread my empty hands in a gesture of surrender. "Not crossing you. But maybe there's something I can do for you."



"Yeah?" He kept it neutral, but I saw the flare of hope in his face. "Like what?"



"Like make a deal for you. You give up Jonathan, give back the powers you stole-I think the Wardens won't make more trouble for you. You just go on about your business." Not that I was empowered to make deals for them, but I was here and he was talking. And with the deep game Lewis seemed to be playing, the faster and simpler I could make this, the better.



Kevin shook his head. "No way. He's all I got."



"Sooner or later they'll get to you. Look, Kevin, I don't care how much power you've got; sooner or later they'll take you down. You know that. Let me-"



"I don't need your help." He took a shuffling step my direction, probably trying to look menacing; he succeeded in looking like he was going to trip over his ragged hems. "You shouldn't even be here. No Warden alive can get past the city limits; that's what Jonathan said."



No Warden alive.



Oh, Lewis. You bastard... you could've let me in on the plan... He hadn't wanted Paul and the others to know. He'd been doing this himself, in secret. Hence the abduction by Lel and Carl, and where the hell did my innocent, peace-loving Lewis find a couple of hard-core killers like that? Lovely.



"Well? What're you waiting for? Go. I'm ordering you to... you know... go!" Kevin made a shooing motion. If it hadn't been so pathetic, I'd have laughed.



"I can't. Not a Djinn anymore, and I don't happen to have one on me, either." My mind was racing like an engine on idle, making lots of noise and going nowhere. "Hey, you want to send me packing, use your own."



"Who? Him?" Without looking up, Kevin made a little circle in the air with his finger in the general direction of the roof.



I figured he wasn't talking about God. "Jonathan," I clarified. His hand dropped back to his side, but there was a flash in his eyes that might well have been fear.



"You don't want that. Maybe you should just take a bus or something. But you'd better get moving, or I will tell him you're here, and tell him what to do with you."



"Is he in the bottle?" I asked. Kevin scuffed a shoe on tile and looked surly. "C'mon, Kev, be a sport. Is he running around loose or did you seal him up?"



"He told me if I stuck him in the bottle one more time he'd cream me." The prominent ball of Kevin's Adam's apple worked up and down. "Not like I can't handle him, but shit. Let the old geezer have some fun, you know?"



"If he's out of the bottle, he already knows I'm here," I said. "Look, Kevin, I never hurt you. I tried to help you. You know that, don't you?"



"You've been trying to bust down the door ever since I came here. You and all of them." He jerked his chin in the general direction of nowhere, referring to the Wardens, I was sure. "Well, you're here now. Hope you liked the ride."



I took a step toward him. Just one. His head jerked up, and so did his hand, pointing at me in some awkward parody of a stage magician. Theatrics, part of my mind reported dryly. He probably has incantations to go along with it. Kevin had power, and he'd rubbed elbows with trained professionals, but I was pretty sure his entire understanding of how magic worked had more to do with Saturday-morning cartoons than quantum physics. He had power of his own-fire, as I recalled, and a pretty sizable talent-but by himself, he wouldn't be hard to defeat.



But he wasn't alone, and if I started a fight I wasn't going to win. Lewis wanted me here, and he'd gone to amazing lengths to get me in position; it'd be a shame to waste a perfectly good murder on something so stupid as picking a fight with Superpsycho.



I stopped, folded my hands like a good girl, and waited for him to make some kind of rational decision.



His eyes swept over me, and I was sorry again that I hadn't dressed for the occasion-if you're going to risk your life, you ought to at least look good doing it. The shoes weren't holding up well under the abuse, and they'd been no-name knockoffs to begin with- I'd blown out of New York with no time for quality shopping. Ah, for the good old days of Djinnhood, when I'd been able to conjure Manolo Blahniks out of the aetheric... What did heroic last stands call for, anyway? Versace? Jimmy Choo? I was still steaming over Lel's last jibe at my shoe savvy. Those had definitely been knockoffs.



"Come with me," Kevin said. He shot me a brief, hot sideways look. "You try any shit with me, I'll do you like I did... Yvette." He had trouble calling her Mom these days. I was amazed that he'd ever been able to choke the name out, the kind of hell she'd put him through. My sympathy for him didn't make him any less threatening.



I had a vivid red memory of what had happened to Yvette. I didn't think I'd ever really be able to forget the sound of her skull crushing. "I'll be good."



He started to turn away, hesitated, and said, "What's your name? For real, yo. None of that Lilith bullshit you pulled last time."



"Joanne."



"Oh." A frown layered his forehead. "For real? Huh. I thought you had a better one than that."



"Better?"



A vague gesture. "You know. Hotter."



I took offense. "You mean like Vanna LaTramp or something? Some pole-dancer name?"



Shrug, and two hot little circles in his cheeks. "You don't look like no Joanne to me."



"Yeah, well, you don't look like a Kevin. Okay, you would if you had a haircut and some decent clothes..." I knew my mouth was running off with me, but I couldn't stop it, and then he was turning on me, hand raised.



I froze. He didn't hit me, but it was a close thing.



"Bitch, don't act like my fucking mother unless you want to die like her." Ouch. His tone had gone opaque and steel-cold, edged with fury. So much for the light conversation. He was trying to be those dangerous, badass villains he'd watched in movies. The problem was that he was dangerous, and I knew it better than anybody. The image of Yvette Prentiss came back to me as she screamed out her last moments of life. Kevin had watched her die without so much as a blink. However much he might look like just another Generation X punk, he was more than that. Worse.



She'd made him that way.



I didn't dare push him. I gestured politely and said, "After you."



He grabbed my arm and towed me toward the lobby of the Bellagio.



With enough money, everything can be made tasteful. The lobby of the Bellagio was a good case in point. I couldn't imagine the mind-boggling amounts spent on this place... the fantastically ornate blown-glass floral ceiling for a start, which would have been beautiful if it had been two feet across, but at forty feet was so overwhelming it nearly whited out the mind. Soft, soothing carpet underfoot, edged with bright, shiny marble. Well-scrubbed tailored staffers. Endless rows of counters waiting to do nothing but serve paying customers. The place was thick with tourists, most outfitted in whatever the latest Abercrombie amp; Fitch ad told them would make them cool.