Chill Factor

Two hours later I was sweating, broke, back down to betting my shoes, and out of the game. Quinn politely carried my chair back to its proper interrogation distance; when I looked mutinous about sitting down, he put a hand on my shoulder. Not that he pushed, exactly. Just put a hand on my shoulder, with authority.

I sat. Besides, my feet were starting to hurt, and my pride was bruised.

The old men played another three hands, silent except for raising and calling, folding and grunting in satisfaction when they won. It looked to me like Coke-bottle Glasses was winning. Nobody seemed bothered.

At some invisible signal, they just stopped playing. Myron gestured to the Luxor-uniformed factotum, who came around, counted chips, and handed over handwritten notes. Once the green baize table was clear, they passed their slips of paper around to Myron, who read each one and put them in some kind of order. Then he folded his hands on top of them.

'The vote is concluded,' he said. 'Mr. Ashworth holds the right of decision in this matter.'

Vote? Vote? They voted by playing poker?

It hit me two seconds later what name he'd used.

Ashworth.

That could be a coincidence. There were lots of people named Ashworth.

Coke-bottle Glasses stood up to his lofty height of about five feet, straightened his nondescript but highly expensive gray suit, and took off his glasses. Without them, he had a dignified if sharp-featured face. He fixed a fierce gaze on me.

And I knew. There was a family resemblance, no question about it.

'I believe you knew my son,' he said. 'Charles Spenser Ashworth the third. I am Charles Spenser Ashworth the second. You may call me Mr. Ashworth.'

I opened my mouth to say something, no idea what, but he stopped me with one upthrust finger and an intensely unpleasant look.

'Joanne Baldwin,' he said, 'I have won the right to decide what is done with you. Do you understand that?'

I managed to nod. I was too busy looking over his shoulder at Quinn, who'd come to full alert. Quinn had some features about him that reminded me of Carl, back in the desert. Adaptable to the situation, even if the situation called for death and mayhem.

I was unexpectedly nostalgic for the Bellagio hotel room, and the hair-trigger tension of Jonathan and Kevin. At least I'd been among friends.

Ashworth was talking. '… avoided telling the truth six years ago. You will not avoid it this time.'

I wet my lips. 'May I say something?' I got a terse, jerky nod from Ashworth. 'I was cleared of charges by the Wardens.'

'By the Wardens, yes.' His contempt was clear. 'We do not acknowledge the-how shall I put it?- impartiality of the Wardens. The venally corrupt should not be judging the guilty.'

'Hey! Did we miss the part where I was not guilty!'

'I'm sorry, my dear, but you see that we may not necessarily agree with the decision,' Myron said. 'You were responsible for the death of one of our own. And now you must answer for it.'

'To his father? Call me crazy, but what's impartial about that?'

Myron spread his hands in an elegantly helpless gesture. 'You saw the game, my dear. He won the vote. In fact, you even participated. You had the opportunity to win your freedom. You failed.'

These guys were insane. 'I didn't know I was playing for it!'

'Would you have played more skillfully if you'd known?' He studied me for a long moment, then reached in his pocket and withdrew a white-gold cigarette case, tapped out a cancer stick, and lit up. 'Continue, Charles.'

'You will tell me,' Ashworth said. 'You will tell me how my son died. Now.'

Oh, I so didn't want to do this, especially not now. 'Look, this is six years old, and we have a real problem, don't you get it? That kid over at the Bellagio has the power to-'

Somebody electrocuted me.

A charge zipped up from the carpet, the metal leg of the chair, into my flesh and bones. I lost control. My body convulsed in a galvanic response, frozen by the current. Electrocution doesn't hurt, in the strictest sense of the word; there's no way to feel pain when every nerve in your body is frying into carbon.

It isn't until it stops that your brain gets the signal and you feel the pain.

The second the current cut out I pitched forward, gasping in great whoops of air, shuddering, feeling as if I'd dived into a lake of fire. Someone's hands kept me from sliding out of the chair. Not Quinn's. He was still across the room, doing an imitation of a statue. I felt a bright sting of panic inside at the thought that they might do that to me again, but I kept myself from babbling. Somehow. I just panted and shuddered and tried to keep my muscles from twitching.

Myron blew out smoke, took another leisurely drag on his cigarette, and said, 'I really don't think you should concern yourself with Kevin Prentiss just now, my dear. Please attend to the matter at hand. Charles really has very little patience.'

'Tell me how you killed my son.' Ashworth's voice had dropped lower, gone gravelly.

I looked at him from underneath tear-matted lashes. 'Trust me when I say you don't want to know.'

They were going to do it again. No problem. All I had to do was control the situation… disrupt the particle chains as they formed, kill the electric charge and dissipate it, preferably through the carpeting so that it would shock the crap out of all these self-righteous little-

I thought I was prepared for it, but I wasn't. The hands on my shoulders released, and before I could get hold of the whip-fast chain of linking charges the banquet chair became ol’ Sparky again, and I was riding the lightning. I wish I could say that my mind whited out but it wasn't like that. When it was over, I felt every frying nerve and misfiring cell. I couldn't hold back the tears and the sharp-edged whimpers, any more than I could stop the involuntary convulsions that continued in my back, legs, and arms. I smelled something burning. It was probably me. They held me upright in the chair.

And in my ringing ears, Charles Ashworth's calm order came like the voice of doom. 'Tell me how you killed my son.'

'I'm not a fucking Djinn; the Rule of Three won't work. And I'm not telling you a thing, you son of a bitch,' I managed to gasp.

Quinn spoke from across the room. 'Joanne, just tell the man. He really will kill you.'

'It would be a shame,' Lazlo said. He'd stubbed out his cigarette sometime during the last eternity, and was staring down at his clasped hands.

The others around the table looked to be in various stages of discomfort, but nobody was banging a fist and demanding for my torture to be stopped. Even the bartender was still as a ghost in the corner. The duties of the silent employees might even cover body disposal.

I tried to bring myself under control, and reached for wind…

… and slammed hard into a barrier that was as complete as anything I'd ever encountered. Somebody had this place locked down. Tight. It had the smell of Djinn to it.

'Please,' Lazlo said. 'There is no need for this unpleasantness. All you have to do is tell us what happened. Surely there's nothing you object to in that. I'm certain you already told the story to the Wardens. Why not to us?'

Because I didn't want to remember it.

There was a warning zap through the chair, just enough to sting and make the tears in my eyes break free. I gasped in shallow breaths. Hell, they probably already knew the story, I told myself. They knew everything else. Clearly, fighting wasn't getting me anywhere except a fast trip to a largely hypothetical afterlife. I wasn't ready to die again. Not yet.

I sucked in a deep breath, managed to straighten myself up, and tried my voice. It sounded weak, but steady.

'I'll tell you,' I said. 'But don't blame me if you don't like it.'

I hated Chaz from the first moment I laid eyes on him, and I couldn't really say why. Ever have that happen? Makes you feel ridiculous and prejudicial, but it's nothing you can help. It's some cellular process of repulsion that