Chill Factor

aetheric it was shadow and midnight, velvet and silence. Hunger and the death of hope. This place consumed.

The Luxor was a lone blaze of light, burning and shimmering with power. There was a golden mist streaming away from it like a flow of dry ice, heading across an empty stretch of darkness toward… something else.

The absence of fire. A flickering blackness full of shadows, gravity, hunger.

It was consuming light, not producing it. Like a black hole, devouring everything around it in ever-increasing spirals.

We dropped back out of the aetheric. I fell hard back into my body with an all-over jolt that pulled sore muscles. Winced.

'That's Kevin?' I asked. Lewis slowly nodded. He looked mortally tired, even by so brief a journey. 'Hey. Sit before you fall.'

He lowered himself to a cross-legged position on the floor. 'So. You understand?'

'Not really.'

'I told you, she's useless,' Ashworth said, and gripped the silver head of his cane more tightly, as if he wanted to bean me with it again. 'Try putting it in words of one syllable for her.'

Lewis put his hands on his knees, palms up, in a lotus pose. 'Kevin's not producing enough power anymore,' he said. 'His natural talent was fire; he exhausted that weeks ago. He's burning through what he took from me too fast, and now in order to sustain himself and Jonathan he's learning how to take power from the world around him.'

I felt a sudden chill. 'Like a Djinn.'

'No. Djinn do it on a much more balanced scale; he's drawing power like a demon. He has to be stopped, Jo. Regardless of his age, he's becoming a threat deadlier than anything that's walked the earth in ages. He has to be stopped, now.' Lewis sucked in a deep breath, then let it out.

Lazlo took up the thread. 'We need you to draw him out of hiding.'

'Excuse me?'

'He doesn't come out of that room. We were able to act once, to get you out of there, because he was about to kill you, but we can't do it again. He's ready for us now. I need you to draw him out in the open so Quinn can take him. He'll be defending against magical attacks. He won't expect this kind.'

I stared at him, stunned. 'You want me to be bait?'

'No. We want you to gain his trust and then betray him. And it's very possible he might kill you before we can take him down.'

'Wow, I'm just jumping at the chance to help you out now.'

Lewis reached out and took my hand. I tensed, waiting for the burn of power that had always passed between us, but felt nothing. Of course… all his powers were gone, drained away, leaving a huge bleeding hole that was killing him. I'd never feel that burn between us again. Even if we succeeded in…

'No!' I yanked my hand back. 'Lewis, dammit, if you kill the kid, we can't get your powers back. You know that!'

I wasn't saying anything they hadn't already thought of themselves. None of them had so much as a flicker of shock. Not even Lewis. 'I know.' He shrugged. 'That's how it has to be. He can't be allowed to get any stronger. It's tearing things apart. And that's just him sitting still. If he starts really using those powers, God help us all.'

'No!' I practically yelled it. Lazlo glanced at Lewis. So did Quinn. 'You've got power, I know it, I can feel it! Combine forces, get over to the Bellagio, and kick his teenage ass! All we have to do is get Jonathan away from him. Hell, you even had the chance when you sent Quinn to get me!'

'Jonathan doesn't want to go,' Lewis interrupted me. 'Believe me, we've tried. Best we can figure, Jonathan wants to be Kevin's Djinn.'

That made no sense at all. Why would Jonathan-who I knew was no one's bitch-stay a slave? Unless there was something in it he wanted…

I had a blinding memory, real as the aching lump at the back of my head. Jonathan, standing in front of a plate-glass window that didn't really exist, watching the world go by, his eyes dark and bitter and angry. There are days when every single one of them deserves to be wiped off the face of the earth.

He'd been looking out at the mortal world.

And Rahel had said, He is the one true god of your new existence, little butterfly.

I said slowly, 'Kevin's not doing this. At least, he doesn't know he is, and he probably doesn't want to do it. It's Jonathan. He's found a way to give the world back to the Djinn. As far as Jonathan's concerned, Kevin's the perfect answer-nearly unlimited power, not too bright, not too principled, too young to know that he's being stupid. Too innocent to understand that Jonathan's using him, not the other way around. Jonathan just says 'yes, master' a lot and goes about his own affairs. He's killing Kevin by drawing off every scrap of power inside of him, and he's reaching through Kevin to suck it out of the world around him.'

Silence. Lewis's expression was unreadable.

'But you already knew that,' I finished softly. 'Didn't you?'

Lewis nodded.

'And you know what he's trying to do.'

Another nod. Lewis wasn't looking so good. I could almost see the blood draining out of his face, leaving him an unhealthy yellowish gray.

'Actually, killing the human world is a bonus,' he said. 'Jonathan's looking for lost Djinn.'

'Lost…' I frowned. 'You mean free, right?'

'No. Lost.' He sighed. 'The Wardens have been losing Djinn, and we haven't been finding them. They're still sealed in bottles, best guess. And it's too much of a coincidence that so many have gone missing. Somebody's got them.'

'Somebody around here?'

'Think about it. Jonathan manipulated the kid into coming here, remember? He put the idea in Kevin's head. He wanted to be brought here. That means the answer must be here, too.'

'And you're sure it's not your friendly neighborhood Ma'at.'

Lazlo looked offended. 'We don't imprison Djinn. We free them.'

I glanced at them each in turn. Ashworth looked like he was sucking lemons.

'Up to you, Jo,' Lewis said. 'You get the boy out in the open, where we can stop this. If we have to take this fight up on the magical level, it'll kill everything. That's what Jonathan wants. That's what he needs. You have to…'

His eyes rolled back in his head. I reached for him, but Quinn was there ahead of me, taking his weight and easing him down on the carpet full-length.

The seizure lasted a full two minutes this time, complete with bone-cracking, spine-bending galvanic spasms. I tried to hold him down but it felt like he was made of metal cables and stainless steel, not flesh and blood. Except there was blood, trickling bright red from the corner of his mouth. I wiped it away with a warm, damp washcloth Quinn brought from the bathroom. Once the convulsions stopped, he lay still as death except for the rise and fall of his chest. I ran my fingers through his sweat-damp hair and looked across at Quinn. Quinn looked as blank as marble, and just as hard.

'He'll sleep awhile,' he said. 'Let's get him on the bed.'

I helped lift him. Now that the spasms were past, he felt like he was a disjointed marionette, all papier-mвchй and thread. Lighter than he should have been. When Quinn stripped off his T-shirt I realized I could count his ribs. I put my hand flat against the bony ridges and found his skin was burning hot, hot as a Djinn's.

'Pants,' Quinn said, and pointed to Lewis's jeans. 'Less confusing for everybody if you do it.'

I swallowed an inappropriate laugh and unbuttoned and unzipped. Dйjа vu. Wasn't the first time I'd been in Lewis's pants…

Quinn whipped them off with medical efficiency. The boxers underneath were white with pale blue stripes, very 1950s. I pulled the covers up over him.