Chill Factor

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.

'You Joanne Baldwin?' he asked me. He had a nothing kind of a voice, not deep, not high, not impressive. A trace of a West Coast drawl, maybe. I nodded. I couldn't seem to take my hand away from my aching throat. 'Good,' he said. 'You got the bottle?'

I shook my head and coughed. My lungs throbbed.

The gunman reached over and shut the door. 'Poison gas, right?' he asked. 'Damn. Guess it's not a good idea to go in there and toss the room just now.'

I shook my head. He holstered the gun and held out his hand, and just like that, he came into focus for me. A wallpaper kind of guy with black hair, a clever face, and light brown eyes. Two-day growth of beard.

'Nice to meet you. My name's Quinn,' he said. 'I'm here to rescue you.'

FIVE

Some rescue.

When it became clear I wasn't the damsel in distress-or at least not the kind Quinn could save me from with his heroic.45-he grabbed me by the elbow and hustled me down the hall, into the elevator, and out through the casino in record time.

I was getting tired of being hustled.

As we stepped outside onto the wide portico, with its huge sweep of overhang and constant stream of limos and taxis dropping off money, I yanked myself loose and stepped back, hands in fists at my sides. At last. Out in the open-more or less-and breathing natural air.

'Hey!' I snarled. Quinn's eyebrows did a funny little up-and-down jerk, and then his face went reflectively impassive. 'Pal! Back off, will you? I don't need your damn help! I had things under control!'

'Yeah, it really looked like it,' Quinn said. He calmly reached into his pocket and took out the gun again, in full view of the uniformed doormen. One of them looked alarmed and reached for a phone; Quinn also moved his coat and revealed an official-looking gold badge in a black holder snapped over his belt.

Quinn was a cop.

'Let's take a drive, sunshine,' he told me, and steered me out into a holding pen reserved for taxis and cars for hire. A dark brown Ford Taurus sat among them, shiny as a roach, and Quinn popped open doors and put me in like a criminal with a hand on my head, into the backseat. I immediately tried the door, but of course it didn't open. Childproof locks had a lot to answer for.

Quinn's driver's-side door opened, and he bent over to fix me with a look out of those light toffee-brown eyes. 'Play nice,' he said. 'Don't make me cuff you.'

I put my hands pointedly in my lap. The car's upholstery groaned slightly as he got in, and then the engine fired and we were moving down the long driveway into blinding Las Vegas sun, heading for a huge sign that spelled out the current Bellagio attractions in glowing starlike lights.

'I'm under arrest?' I asked. 'What's the charge?'

'Criminal stupidity,' Quinn said.

'And you're full of shit. I told you, I didn't need rescuing, and if I'm not under arrest, Detective Quinn-'

'Consider yourself a material witness in an ongoing investigation.'

'An investigation of what, exactly?'

He took a right turn onto Flamingo Road, negotiated with a Lexus for a lane change, and headed the car down Las Vegas Boulevard. 'Murder,' he said. 'I had a guy pitched out of that window about a week ago, you know. Messed up my sidewalk something terrible. I guess you know that nobody else can see those knuckleheads up there. You must be a Warden, right? Wardens can see them.'

Now that the panic was starting to subside, I felt tired and achy. Groggy with leftover adrenaline. 'And you? You're a Warden?'

He held up his right hand. I made a pass in the air, concentrated, and saw the telltale sparkle of wards reflected on his skin. Quinn's aetheric tattoo was an ankh, the Egyptian symbol for life. Which didn't match the stylized sunburst I'd expected to see.

'Not a Warden. What the hell are you?'

'Need to know, sunshine.'

'As in, I don't need to?'

'I know you thought you were being all clever and shit, but the kid wasn't giving you Jonathan's bottle. Oh, he was going to give you a bottle, but it was one with a nasty toy surprise inside. He already pulled that on one other poor bastard.' Quinn's glance in the rearview mirror was grim and assessing. 'I take it you have some experience with Demon Marks.'

Where the hell had he heard that? Not even the Wardens knew much about it. The Djinn knew, but this guy wasn't Djinn; I'd have been able to tell that much. Not a Warden, not Djinn, but something.