Chill Factor

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.