Thin Air

I stopped, astonished, and realized that the way I was lying, I ought to be able to see my right hand. It was lying right in front of my face...but it wasn't there. I wiggled my fingers experimentally and clenched my fist. I could feel the play of muscle, but there was nothing there.



I'd gone invisible.



"What the hell...?" That earned me a thump on the back of the head. "Ow! Who the hell are you?" Someone, obviously, with the ability to turn me completely invisible. The scary thing was that it didn't really narrow down my choices.



"Quiet!" the voice hissed, and I obeyed, because I felt the Demon close, very close. The blackness swept over me like gravity, as if I were going to be pulled into her and destroyed, smashed apart at the cellular level.



And then it faded again, slowly, leaving me weak and sick and somehow...less.



I found myself being yanked upright by some tremendous force, and held there when my knees wobbled. I couldn't see anything near me, but then, when I looked down, I couldn't see myself, either.



"Hold on," the voice said. "This is going to hurt."



She wasn't kidding. Heat swept over me, and then a feeling of being instantly flash-frozen, and then every nerve in my body screamed as one...



...and then I was on my knees in deep, soft carpeting the exact color of caramel.



I pitched forward, face-first, and tried to scream, because whatever had just happened to me was wrong even by the considerably liberal standards of wrongness I was getting used to.



I couldn't make a sound.



I watched as my body started to come out of its invisibility, growing shadows first, then a kind of translucent reality, and then I was flesh and blood again.



And I could scream, but this time, I managed to lock it in my throat and moderate it to a helpless sort of whimper.



My benefactor-if you could call her that-walked around to face me. I looked up. Not far up, because she was only about four feet tall, cute as a button, a perfect little blond girl with inhumanly blue eyes and an outfit straight out of Alice in Wonderland, complete with patent leather Mary Janes.



"You can get up now," she said. "I don't think you're hurt."



Not hurt? She had to be kidding. I rolled slowly on my side and worked my way up to a sitting position, bracing myself with my arms. Standing up was not on the menu, not yet.



"What-" My voice was a hoarse croak; I cleared my throat and tried again. "What the hell did you do to me? Who-?"



"My name is Venna," she said. "I'm Djinn."



No freakin' kidding. I stared at her mutely, and she folded her hands over the front of her white pinafore and stared right back without blinking.



"You don't remember me," she said. Not a question. "You used to call me Alice. You could call me that again, if you like." She said it with the generosity of a noble dispensing a penny to a peasant. I just kept on staring. Why I'd know her as Alice was pretty self-evident, given her appearance. I was waiting for the Red Queen and the Mad Hatter to join the party. "I had to take you away. You couldn't fight her. She was taking you apart, and if I hadn't stopped you, you'd be dead now."



I finally found my voice. "Did David send you?"



Venna's blue eyes didn't blink, and her expression didn't shift, but I sensed that she was choosing her next words too carefully. "David cannot send me anywhere," she said. I wanted for her to get around to a further explanation. It wasn't forthcoming.



"I need to go back," I said. "She'll kill everybody back there."



"No," Venna said. "She killed the ones who saw you together. Now she's convincing the rest that she is you."



"She-wait, what?"



"She's given herself up. She will tell them that she has recovered her memories-and that will be true, because the Demon already had them. She will tell them that she's you, and..." Venna shrugged. "They will believe her."



"But-that can't happen. That can't happen!" She just looked at me. Obviously, it could. "They'll know. Lewis will know."



She was already shaking her head. "Any doubts can be explained away. She's been through a great trauma. Any of them can tell that, and they won't disbelieve her story."



I grasped at my last straw. "David! David will figure it out. Hello, mother of his child! Surely he knows me better than-"



"He would know if she could be perceived as a Demon. She's different now. He also has no reason not to accept her." Venna's eyes seemed to get deeper, darker, and scarier. She looked twelve, and twelve hundred. Twelve thousand. "You can't win this by going against her. It will only destroy you, and everyone who believes you."



I found I was able to get up, and staggered across the carpet to a king-sized bed, where I collapsed in an untidy sprawl. "So what am I supposed to do? What if she follows me?"



Venna cocked her head at me, interested as a robin with a worm. "Do as I say," she said. "You will be safe here, so long as you don't go out or talk to anyone. She can only find you when she's close-the same way you can sense her. As long as you avoid attracting attention, you'll be fine. I am going to retrieve someone who can help you."



I had just enough spark left to ask, "Who?"



"Ashan," she said.



"David was looking for him."



"I know." Venna smiled slowly. Not a comforting kind of smile. "I've been keeping him safe; David would have killed him. And now we need him, so it's good that I got him, don't you think?"



I had no idea what to say to that. Venna smoothed down her dress, nodded to me gravely, and walked off into...thin air. Just...gone.



She came back, silent as a ghost, for a few seconds, to say, "You understand...don't go out? Don't talk to anyone? I've put clothing in the closet for you. Don't go out."



I nodded. I might not understand much of this, but that part, I got. And hey, not a bad place, as hideouts went. I was in a big, well-appointed hotel room, immaculately clean, with a big plasma TV on the wall, a comfy bed, and-visible through the open door-a gigantic whirlpool tub.



Venna gave me one last doubtful look, then vanished. I waited, but she didn't come back to check. So I got up, went to the window, and pulled the brocade curtains.



Below, a whole city stretched out, a dizzying array of architectural marvels, fountains, people, lights, cars, dazzling sunlight. There was a gigantic Sphinx's rear end pointed toward my room, about seven stories down. The window sloped, and when I craned out for a look, I saw the building itself was sloped, like the side of a pyramid.



A hospitality book on the desk identified the hotel as the MGM Grand, Las Vegas.



That seemed weirdly familiar to me, but staring out at the landscape didn't seem helpful.



I went to try out the tub instead.



Chapter Seven



SEVEN



I was up to my neck in suds and blessedly warm water, experimenting with the various controls for the water jets, when I heard the door to the room open and close. I'd shut the bathroom door, so I couldn't hear or see anything else. I waited, but Venna didn't knock, and the last thing I wanted was to face her naked and dripping, anyway. I scrambled up, toweled off, and put on the underwear, blue jeans, black shirt and plain flat shoes that had been Venna's idea of appropriate costume.



I walked out, prepared to find out what kind of trouble I was in now, but it wasn't Venna.



And the two people I walked in on didn't even know I was there, at least not at first. I had to give them credit, they were very fast off the blocks-the clothing trail started at the door, with his tie, and finished in a heap at the foot of the bed. They were definitely not paying attention to me, quite, um, vigorously.



I tried tiptoeing to the door, and didn't quite get halfway there before the woman-leggy, redheaded, with a model's perfect ass, which had been on major display-caught sight of me and shrieked, falling off of her boyfriend, who thrashed around like a wounded seal in a shark tank. I held up my hands and backed toward the door.



"What the hell are you doing in our room?" he yelled, and came off the bed at me, still stark naked. I backed away, faster.



"Um...sorry, room inspector, I was just...making sure you had toilet paper, and...so, you like the bed? Brand-new bed. Very bouncy." I was babbling, shaking, and I kept fierce eye contact with him because the temptation for my gaze to wander was...overwhelming. I felt the handle of the door dig into my back, reached behind me, and twisted it open. "Sorry, sir, ma'am. Please, enjoy your stay..."



I barely made it into the hall before he slammed the door on me. I leaned there, puffing for breath, trembling with reaction, and had to put both hands over my mouth to keep from screaming with laughter.



Don't go out. Yeah, thanks, Venna. Thanks a lot.



And you know, it would all have been just fine, if Romeo hadn't gotten on the house phone and reported me, but by the time I'd gotten in the elevators the security machine was already in motion.



When the elevator dinged to a halt at the ground floor, I was wondering where the hell I ought to go, and how I was going to get word to Venna.



I didn't have to wonder about that first part, not anymore. Facing me, blocking my path, were two guys in matching sports jackets, with logos on the pockets. They were the size of minivans, and they didn't look happy.



"Come with us," one of them said. Not that I had a choice, because before the third word of the phrase was out, there were hands around my upper arms, and I was being marched off to the side, away from the busy foot traffic and ringing slot machines, to a discreet unmarked door with a key card entrance.



They sat me down at a table and stared at me in silence.



"So," I said. "Guys, this is all just a...mistake. Okay? I was looking for my...my niece, she's about twelve, cute kid, blond hair, blue eyes, looks like Alice in Wonderland..."



They kept on staring at me. One of them finally demanded my name. I lied. They kept staring.



After about two eternities, a woman came in and bent over to whisper in one of the guards' ears. He nodded. She left.



I waited for someone to explain to me what was going on. That was about as successful as you'd expect; these were not chatty fellows. I kept offering conversational olive branches, and they kept snapping them off.



Thirty minutes later, give or take, two uniformed police officers entered the room, escorted by the woman I'd seen earlier. I felt a real, serious chill spread over me.



"Joanne Baldwin?"



I didn't nod. It didn't matter.



"Joanne Baldwin, I need you to stand up and put your hands behind your back," the older of the two cops said. "Are you armed?"



"Armed? No! What's going on?" I stood up, mainly because there wasn't any point in not complying. More than enough muscle in the room to enforce the request.



"There's a warrant out for your arrest," he said, and spun me around as he grabbed my right wrist. I felt the cold metal pinch of handcuffs on that side, then the other hand, and it was done before I could even react. "I'm going to need you to stay calm, ma'am. I'm sure if there's a mistake you can work it out, but we have to take you in now."



"But-what kind of warrant?" I asked. Because this seemed pretty excessive for accidental Peeping Tom-age. Or even accidental breaking and entering.



"You're under arrest for the murder of a police officer," he said. "You have the right to remain silent..."



I didn't remember the words of the Miranda warning. It's possible I'd never even heard them before, at least not directed at me. Murder of a police officer?



Man, you'd think that somebody would have mentioned it to me if I was a cop killer.



I didn't remember the guy I was supposed to have killed, although they showed me pictures. I suppose that didn't exactly come as a shock, but what disturbed me was more the fact that I had no idea-none at all-whether or not I'd actually committed the crime. Nothing seemed clear-cut anymore, since I'd done whatever it was I'd done to Marion.



The dead guy's name was Detective Thomas Quinn, and they had surveillance footage of me with him-or someone who looked exactly like me, who used my name. Like, say, a Demon. How long had she been impersonating me? Could she have been responsible? It didn't really matter, because as far as the police were concerned it wasn't exactly a viable defense.



So I went with the truth as I knew it. I didn't remember. No, I couldn't recall being in Las Vegas before. No, I didn't know Detective Quinn. No, I had no idea what had happened to him.



They showed me photos of a blown-up truck in a deserted area to prove that I'd killed him, but all I came up with was a feeling...a bad one. If I had killed the guy, it would have been in some sense necessary, right? Justified? God, I hoped so.



The two detectives interrogating me seemed interchangeable-not physically, but in every other way. No personality to speak of, and all they wanted from me was a confession, which I couldn't properly give. I asked for an attorney, because at least that would give me time, and the questioning ended for a while.



Which left me stranded in a hot, airless interrogation room that smelled of sweat and desperation, old coffee and vomit. Charming. I fidgeted with the coffee cup they'd given me-it was paper, of course; accused murderers didn't rate the good china-and tried not to think about the consequences of what was going on.



Look on the bright side, I thought. You don't have to worry about not having any cash. Free food and lodging.



The door rattled, and a new man came in. I didn't know him, either. He moved slowly, like he might be in pain. He had a badge showing, so he was another detective, maybe their secret weapon pinch hitter who was known for extracting confessions. Was he going to beat me? I didn't think so; he didn't look like he was in any physical shape for hand-to-hand, even though I was handcuffed to the table. I looked at him silently and sipped my coffee as he sank into the chair across the table from me.