Chill Factor

I turned my head and looked straight up into Jonathan's eyes. "Don't use him. He deserves better than that. If you want to kill me, just do it; don't drag the kid into it. It's cheap and it's cruel."



I got a quirk of ash-gray eyebrows, a flash of surprise across the ageless face. "I thought he was a murderer. A rabid dog that needed killing. That's what the last Warden had to say before he took the express elevator down. You can still see the splash on the sidewalk if you look closer." He tilted my chair again. I yelped and tried to push myself through the back of the cushions. Hung on for dear life and tried to swallow the urge to beg for my life.



Twice in one day. "You really think the kid deserves a chance?"



"I think he needs to be stopped," I said breathlessly. "I don't think that necessarily means he has to be killed. And since I may be the only one who thinks that, you really ought to think twice about giving me the vertical tour."



This time the glass just disappeared. Poof. The legs of the chair were one inch from the window. Tilted forward as I was, my knees were already exposed to the bright Las Vegas sun. Below, the Bellagio's fountains roared like Niagara, and I could taste the metallic humidity of them evaporating under the desert's constant fixed stare.



I started to slide out, and the sunlight slid hot over my thighs, illuminated my stomach... I was going over, screaming.



That was when Jonathan pulled in a breath so sharp and hard it was audible over the tearing wind, and reached out to yank me back, into the seat. He let the chair thump safely back to the carpet.



Stared down at me with wide, dark, surprised eyes.



"No," he said. "He couldn't possibly be that stupid."



He, who? Lewis? Au contraire, mon ami. I was feeling like everybody was acting fairly stupidly, including me with the bravado. I struggled to breathe without sobbing. God, I didn't like heights, particularly heights from which I would drop to my death and do a fast, ugly survey of thirty-five floors on the way down. I looked up through my wind-tangled hair and saw Jonathan still staring. He looked honestly spooked. It lasted for two or three heartbeats, and then he got control of his face and went back to his habitual I-don't-give-a-crap expression.



"It won't work," he said, and leaned over to get right in my face. "I don't care what he told you, it won't work. If he told you it would guarantee I wouldn't hurt you, he lied. Understand?"



I didn't. Before I could say so, Kevin said, "Don't throw her out the window. Bring her over here to me."



A straight-out order. Kevin's voice shook when he gave it, but Jonathan didn't object or try to screw with him; he towed my chair across the room and delivered it in front of the kid, then stood back, hands in his pockets. Watching me through half-closed, expressionless eyes. I could feel fury pulsing behind it, though. He was mad, all right. I had no idea why. Wasn't like I'd done anything but try not to get myself launched, and I hadn't even done that effectively.



Kevin looked fragile next to him.



"Close it," he said to Jonathan. The roaring hot wind coming in the open window suddenly cut off. Shiny, flawless glass back in place. Some tense, panic-stricken part of me kept on screaming, but I forced it to shut up.



"What happened to the other Wardens who were sent?" I asked. Kevin slumped those narrow, sharp-edged shoulders and studied the carpet.



"They came before I told him to keep them out."



"You had him kill them?"



"I didn't tell him to."



"Did you tell him not to?"



Shrug. I closed my eyes briefly to block out the sight of Yvette dying, screaming. "How can you possibly think you're going to get out of this alive, the way you keep screwing up? You can't kill these people; they'll never let go of you!"



"I know." Kevin looked forlorn. A little boy again. "It was just the one; I just scared the rest and they said they'd stay away. I just wanted them to leave me the fuck alone. Why can't they do that?"



"Because you have something that doesn't belong to you." And you're using it incredibly badly... or it's using you. "The Wardens don't know what's going on in here. They've sent people; they haven't heard back. They're afraid you're killing people in here. Kevin, if you'll just tell me what you've done-"



"Nothing!" He still had the crystal tumbler in his hand, half-full of Jim Beam; he launched it across the room to take out an elegant table lamp with a crunch of porcelain. "Jesus! I'm just trying to have some fun, that's all... don't I deserve that? Not like my life hasn't sucked hard enough..."



"Baby?"



We all came to a complete halt at the new voice... female, soft, high-pitched. Blurry with sleep. I twisted my head and saw that the door to the bedroom had opened, and there was a girl standing there. There was a lot of her on display, since the sheet she was covering herself with didn't exactly drape properly- lots of pale skin, some of it tattooed in dark blue Celtic patterns along the left arm and thigh. She had light hazel eyes, and her red hair was cut short in a straight-out-of-bed tangle that salons would work for hours to achieve. Not pretty, really. A wide jaw, narrow eyes, prominent cheekbones-and then she turned her attention away from me toward Kevin, and the light caught her face just right. Beautiful. Beautiful in a narrow, starved kind of way, a heroin-hungry elegance.



"Oh," Kevin blurted, and blushed. "Uh... nothing you need to worry about. Business." He pulled himself up straighter. "Just go back to bed, okay? I'll be there soon."



The hot hazel eyes wandered back toward me. "Who's she?"



"Nobody."



"Looks like somebody."



She pouted, and shuffled toward the door dragging the Egyptian cotton sheet along with her. "Come back to bed, okay?"



"In a minute."



"Now?"



"In a minute!" His temper flared, and I saw the hurt explode in her eyes in response as she looked back. "Jesus, Siobhan, just go back to bed, okay? I'll be there in a minute!"



She turned and went back into the other room, the door closing quietly behind her. I looked up at Kevin, who was staring after her, and said, "Siobhan?"



His cheeks flushed dark red. "Never mind."



"You pick her up out on the strip? Or did you get Jonathan to conjure her up for you?"



"Shut up, okay?"



"She's real. Not Djinn." I kept staring at him, forcing him to meet my gaze. "Kevin, tell me you didn't kidnap this girl. And how old is she? Sixteen? God!"



"I didn't kidnap her! She was on the street." The red flare in his cheeks was turning purple. "You know. There were these cards. Dropped on the sidewalk."



Hooker cards. Of course. "You're paying her?"



Jonathan, who'd resumed his comfy chair with his feet up, snorted and said, "No, she's with him for his witty personality."



"Shut up!" Kevin yelled. Jonathan picked up his half-empty beer and took a long pull. It must have warmed up while he was tormenting me; mist floated off of the bottle as he chilled it down again. "Look, she's... she's just company. Never mind her. She doesn't matter."



I wondered if she knew that. I thought about the hurt I'd seen flash in her eyes. "All right. Let's talk about you. You want to get out of this alive?"



"Depends." He settled into a mulish, utterly teenage expression. "Don't mind dying. I'm not afraid."



Unbelievable. I looked from him to Jonathan, who raised his eyebrows and gave me a lime-bitter slice of a smile. "Don't look at me," he said. "I'm just the help."



Right, I was the Church Lady. "If you want me to make a deal with the Wardens, you've got to give to get. What are you offering?"



Kevin cut his eyes toward Jonathan. "I'll turn him over if they let me go." He threw it out like a challenge.



Jonathan had no apparent reaction as he took a swig of beer. "Don't do it," he said mildly. "They'll screw you. It's what they do."



"Yeah, well, you don't listen to me!" Kevin looked even more stubborn, and turned his attention back on me. "You want him? Fine. Just let me go."



I felt the words wash over me like an ice-water shower, and tried to keep the expression out of my face. "So you'd just... turn him over. Give me his bottle."



"I don't need him." Like hell, but maybe he really believed it.



"Fine. You hand me the bottle; I'll find a way to get it to them." I kept it casual. Hopefully, he wouldn't realize that once I held Jonathan's bottle, I'd be in control of him... and that would be the end of Kevin's little joyride. I'd put Lewis's powers back where they belonged, set things right, smash the bottle, and be out of this whole damn affair. Then they'd have to give me David's bottle back.



Or maybe I'd keep Jonathan's bottle until he made them give David back. Yeah. That could work.



Kevin was thinking it over. "You swear? You'll let me go?"



"Absolutely," I lied without a qualm. "Trust me."



He was going for it; I could see it in his eyes.



"Okay," he said. "I'll get the bottle. You stay right here."



He took a couple of steps away, faltered, turned back.



"Oops," Jonathan said. He took another drink of beer.



"What?" I asked, and then I felt the air go odd and dead in the room.



I sucked in a startled breath, saw Kevin's eyes widen, and he asked, "You bitch, I said I'd let you-" He broke off into a sickening gagging sound and reached for his throat, whooping in a deep breath. I felt a burning, clawing sting in the back of my mouth, tried to scream, and realized that if I did I was dead. I turned toward Jonathan, who was watching us with mild interest.



"Can't let him do that," Jonathan said. "I've got things to do. People to see. If you know what's smart, Joanne, you'll stay the hell out of my way."



"Help-" I croaked. He shrugged.



"You're a Warden. Help yourself."



Kevin was already passing out. He pitched to his knees, clawing at his throat. His face was scarlet.



In seconds, he was down. Unconscious or dying.



I needed to breathe, and breathing wasn't an option at the moment. A stupid little rhyme ran through my mind, the punch line of which was what he thought was H2O was H2SO4. Chemical humor. My brain cascading uncontrollably, trying to find the answer in the rummage cupboard of my memory.



I let go of my body and felt it thump down on the expensive burgundy carpet, thick enough to qualify for mattress status, and launched myself hard into the aetheric. Reached for clarity. The air turned solid around me in a three-dimensional glittering cube, and I plunged deeper, deeper, hunting for what I knew would be there.



Two molecules added to the complex chain that made air breathable. Just two.



No problem, I could do that. I was good under pressure.



I stretched out power like a thousand hands and began crushing those molecules-or, more accurately, shaking them up like soda pop, changing their electromagnetic signature and rendering them unstable. Crushing them would have meant too much energy being released, and with the kind of poison that had been formed around us, that would have killed us just as fast. Us and most of the top three floors of the hotel.



This shit was extremely flammable. Jonathan really didn't care, did he? This was just another exercise for him; he wanted to see me jump through hoops. Maybe he was mad because I'd actually made Kevin agree...



Quit dicking around and work fast. That voice in my head was entirely unnecessary; I knew how little time I had before either Kevin or I sucked down too much of this crap to survive it. I wasn't enough of a biology geek to know what it would do to me, but I figured it would be fatal and it probably wouldn't be an easy way to go. Come on, move it...



God, I needed David...



No, you don't. You did this fine on your own before. It's not big enough to need a Djinn. Need was such a subjective thing. You did this in training, remember?



Yeah, well, in training sessions I wasn't trying to breathe it while I was altering it.



I realized that my fingers-at least the aetheric representation of them-were getting clumsy, and I dropped down partly into Real World land to form a pocket of pure oxygen around my body, then around Kevin's. I felt myself gasp, felt the rush of relief that followed, and went back up to patiently continue the work.



Something prickled along the back of my neck, which up there wasn't really my neck, or really a prickle; if Jonathan had done this to us, why wasn't he trying to stop me from fixing the problem? And why go to such lengths? He could have just put Kevin to sleep if he'd wanted.



I abandoned the repairs, which were mostly complete anyway, and dropped down into my body like a speeding bullet, breathlessly fast, got to my feet and stumbled for the door...



... and ran into a man coming into the room.



A man with a gun.



I'd describe him, but really, the only thing in focus for me was the gun. I knew some fancy Fire Wardens who claimed to be able to block the ignition sequence in the firing chamber of a gun, but that took guts, mad skill, and a liberal dose of luck, none of which I had at the moment, and besides, I wasn't even a Fire Warden. My lungs and exposed skin were still aching from exposure to the poison-soup air.



I put my hands up and considered knocking him over with a gust of wind, but the steady stare of the gun made me abandon the idea. He looked like a guy who could shoot straight through a hurricane, if necessary.



He gestured silently. Sign language for get your ass out here. I shuffled cautiously out, hugged the wall, and stared at the gun some more. It was an automatic, I knew that much. It looked black, angular, and deadly efficient.