Chill Factor

burning…

And then the shield weakened, and I was on fire.

It lasted for only a few seconds, but the pain was intense, disorienting. I couldn't breathe. Instinct wouldn't let me open my mouth or eyes. Sand quickly buried me, which in a sense was a blessing against the already abraded mess of my skin.

The pressure of wind against me slowed to a bully's shove, then gusts, then a breeze.

Then silence.

The black roller had moved on.

My lungs were aching. I clawed sand away, convulsed my way up to a sitting position, and sucked in a hazy, dry breath. Coughed and tasted ozone.

It was unnaturally still. Nothing but a low-hanging blur of dust so fine it barely qualified as talcum powder, and a landscape scoured clean of everything taller than the asphalt road, which had been worn down in spots to thin gray gravel.

I rolled over, took hold of the metal spike in my leg, and yanked it free. The world wobbled and went dark, and I saw stars, felt the hot spurt of blood, and fumbled my shirt off to tie it hard against my thigh. I managed to get to my feet and limped slowly into the devastation, looking for the Seville.

I didn't recognize it at first. It had the ancient look of something that had been left out here for years, scrubbed down to base metal; the tires were shredded into thin black fibers. The hood was gone, along with the doors and the trunk lid. The leather interior was a tattered, sand-heaped mess.

No sign of Chaz. I limped around the far side and spotted a heap of rags on the other side.

He'd crawled out and tried to take shelter against the back right tire; it had been the only real cover available, but it hadn't helped. He hadn't made a shell the way I had, or if he had, it hadn't worked long enough.

He was missing his skin.

His body was a glistening red-black mess with white bone showing in places.

I sank down on my knees and wished I could cry, but there was nothing left. Nothing but fear.

'You stupid bastard,' I whispered. 'God, I'm so sorry.'

I checked, cringing at the contact of my fingers on his raw flesh. He wasn't breathing, and there was no pulse. After a long, weary pause, I got up and limped back to the wind-scoured road, light-headed, wounded, sand- burned.

Still alive, despite everything.

Stranded under the hot glare of the sun.

I didn't tell them the rest. I ended it with Chaz's death; there was more, but it was none of their damn business. When I was finished, there was silence in the poker room. Lots of it, flowing deep and cold. Most of the card players were staring down, up, away from me.

All except for Quinn, whose eyes were fixed on me in concentration so intense it was almost sexual, and Charles Ashworth, who looked drained. Tired. Old.

'Thank you,' he finally said, and turned back to the table. His voice sounded rusty and ancient. 'I have no further need for her. You may do as you like.'

That had a bad ring to it. I shifted slightly in the chair. Nobody was holding me down, and I was mostly recovered from the last shock; despite the presence of Quinn and the big, burly guys outside, I was giving myself pretty good odds on getting out alive if I had to fight.

'Don't be alarmed,' Myron Lazlo said, in that warm, gentle voice. 'We don't mean you harm, Miss Baldwin.'

I muttered something under my breath about 'could have fooled me.' Quinn heard. I saw the answering dark sparkle in his eyes.

'Yeah, about that, what exactly do you mean, Myron?' I asked. I didn't sound particularly obsequious about it. 'What the hell do you want with me?'

Myron smiled. It was unsettling, because it looked kindly and grandfatherly and yet there was a kind of entitlement about it that made my spine try to crawl away.

'We want you to join us,' he said. 'We want you to report back to the Wardens and tell them all is well, the problem has been solved.'

'Solved?'

'That Jonathan escaped, Kevin died. We do not want you to report anything about our meeting, or the existence of the Ma'at. From time to time, we will have assignments for you that will require you to act on our behalf. That is the price of your freedom.'

I swallowed, wished I had a nice cold glass of water, and said, 'Two problems. First, I don't take orders from you. Second, no matter what I say when I get back, they won't just believe me that our Kevin and Jonathan problem's miraculously solved itself.'

The Ma'at, or at least as much of them as were gathered around a high-stakes table, looked at each other and smiled. Damn, they all looked smug. It must have been a requirement.

'My dear, we wouldn't expect they would,' Myron assured me. 'I promise you, Kevin will be dead. Quite thoroughly dead, before the end of the day. As for Jonathan… well, I expect you'll just have to be convincing.'

One of the others said, 'She won't betray the Wardens. She's as solid as a rock. About as thick as one, too.'

'Rocks are easy,' Ashworth put in. He brushed imaginary lint from his suit. 'All you need is a large enough jackhammer.'

Boy, I wasn't going to like him any more than I had his son.

'You don't have to decide now.' Myron reclaimed the conversation, leaned forward and looked presidential. 'Joanne-may I call you Joanne?-you're not stupid. Surely you know that the Wardens are riddled with corruption, that the situation you faced with Chaz'-his eyes flicked to Ashworth, exchanging a silent message that contained a swift apology-'was hardly unusual. I understand that you also encountered one of the worst offenders in Florida.'

'Bad Bob,' I said, and immediately wished I hadn't blurted it out. I got a slow nod from all the heads at the table.

'Dangerous,' Myron said. 'You did the world a great favor by removing his influence.'

'I didn't do it for the world.' I did it to save my ass.

'Regardless of why you did it, the results were good. Surely Bad Bob confessed to you that he didn't act alone, that there were other Wardens engaged in illegal activities. You must be aware that it runs rampant throughout the organization. You'd have to be foolish not to have concluded that to be the case. That's part of why we were formed, and why we continue to exist. Because the Wardens have become a force for evil, not good. And they need countering.'

I didn't like thinking about Bad Bob, what he'd said, what he'd done to me. I had a sudden cell-deep vision of his weathered face, his sharp blue eyes, his hands pouring a demon down my throat. I felt a sudden dry constriction in my chest, a desperate need to get out of here, away from these men who were starting to strongly remind me of that whole experience.

I stood up. Nobody panicked, not even me. Quinn stayed where he was, shoulders against the wall, arms folded. I walked over to the bar, looked the uniformed attendant in the eye, and ordered a springwater. He handed it over silently. I broke the seal and chugged it, tasting desert and fear and confusion. Handed the empty bottle back.

And then I turned back to Myron and said, 'The Wardens aren't perfect. What makes you think you're any better?'

He just smiled. Wrong tactic. These guys weren't going to feel anything less than omnipotent, no matter what I said.

I tried again. 'You can't kill Kevin.'

'Why not?'

'He's just a kid.'

Myron studied me curiously. 'Yet you've contemplated killing him yourself.'