Chill Factor

The three old men were looking at me expectantly. I closed my eyes for a few seconds, said a quiet prayer, and thought about what Lewis had shown me.

I'd been so arrogant to him. So self-righteous. Since when did being the good guy mean contracting murder?

Since standing by meant destroying the world. Or letting it be destroyed.

'I'm your only hope to get close to Kevin, which is exactly what the Wardens want out of me, too,' I said. 'Here's the deal. Nonnegotiable. I'll play it my way first. If I can retrieve Jonathan's bottle without a fight, that's how it'll be done. If that fails, I'll get him out in the open, and Quinn can take him out.'

'I hardly think that your way-' Ashworth started in.

'I hardly think you're in any position to tell me how this is going to go,' I said. 'I'm the only one of you that Jonathan will let get in spitting distance of the kid.'

They all paused, looking at me. I put my hand over the warm spark that lived inside me, over the promise of life that I could use to deliver death.

'I'm the only one Jonathan won't kill on sight,' I said. 'If I can manage it, I'll get Jonathan's bottle and stop this the easy way. If not…'

I looked at Quinn. Quinn nodded.

'… there's always the easier way.'

I told them to leave, afterward. Quinn and the rest of the League of Totally Ordinary Gentlemen trooped out. I spent the rest of the night curled up against Lewis's dreaming heat, listening to the steady, deep, even rhythm of his breathing. Sometime in there I faded into chaotic dreams of fire and flood, earthquake and storm, and me standing naked as the world eroded around me.

I woke up with Lewis spooned close behind me, still asleep but clearly awake in one part of his anatomy. I eased out from under the covers, went into the bathroom, and did the morning business. I struggled with the brush for ten minutes and was rewarded with shining body waves of dark hair that cascaded down past my shoulders.

Couldn't possibly be a bad day, if my hair cooperated like that.

I contemplated the blue beaded dress, but it was a little formally call-girlish for this early in the a.m. Back into the knit top and short skirt. My legs needed shaving. I attended to that, thanking the Luxor for the gift of personal safety razors, and finished up with a coating of lotion.

As I was smoothing on the last handful across the top of my thigh, I noticed I had company. Lewis was standing there watching me, eyes half-closed but not in the least sleepy. He'd put on his blue jeans, but nothing else… very sexy. I couldn't help but take in the view.

'Hey,' I said, and took my bare foot down from the counter. I hastily wiped the extra lotion across hands and arms and tugged my skirt down to a more modest level. 'You're alive.'

'Barely,' he agreed, and indicated the toilet. I vacated, closing the door on my way out, and fished my shoes out from under the bed. When he flushed and opened the door again, I was sitting on the bed, waiting. He sat down heavily in a chair and rested his head in his hands. 'I'm tired, Jo. Really tired.'

'Yo, boy, join the club.'

'I'm going to get you killed, you know.'

'Yeah, well, you look like you're going to drop dead at any minute, so I'll try not to hold it against you.'

He wasn't smiling. 'You were right. This was my idea. Mine and David's. We knew you'd never get to Kevin alive… I came up with the idea of stopping your heart temporarily, transporting you past the wards, and reviving you. He didn't like it much. He liked the idea of sending you in to Jonathan even less.'

I remembered thinking how easy it would be for Jonathan to swat me like a fly. That would put an end to David's divided loyalties. 'He found a way to protect me.' The hot spark tingled under the press of my fingers on my abdomen. 'We will be having a conversation about that later.'

Lewis looked at me through latticed fingers. 'What?'

'Nothing.' I sucked in a breath and let it out. 'So. Good move, getting me inside, but why didn't you use your business-suit buddies?'

'We've tried. Kevin's stopped us cold, and he's been sucking power at a faster and faster rate. We can't balance what's happening anymore. It's out of control. That's why we have to do this, Jo. It isn't that I want-' He broke off, shook his head roughly. 'This isn't what I ever wanted. And using you to do it…'

'Sucks,' I said crisply. 'Well. There you go. Anything else I should know?'

He leaned back in his chair and regarded me through bloodshot, half-lidded eyes. 'Yeah. Djinn are supposed to be returned to the vaults when Wardens die. There's always been attrition-some bottles breaking, some lost. But two hundred years ago, there were fifteen hundred Djinn known to the Wardens. Do you know how many there are today?'

I frowned at him. 'No. Why does this matter?'

'Because there are fewer than six hundred in the vaults and assigned in the field.'

'How many showed up free?'

'Maybe three hundred of them. Now, there will be losses. Bottles get buried, sunk in the ocean, there's predation by the Ifrit. Even then, there have to be a lot missing, and most of them have disappeared in the last six years. I think that's why Jonathan's resorted to this. He either believes we're behind it, or that we don't care.'

'So somebody's stealing from the Wardens! And they don't know?'

'They suspect.' Lewis rubbed his face as if he were trying to rub away exhaustion. ' Marion 's been investigating. I helped her for a while. It all comes back here. To Las Vegas, or nearby. We can't find the bottles, since they don't show up on the aetheric, but there's this sense of…' He hunted for the word. 'Evil. Jonathan manipulated the kid into bringing him here. He's looking for the same thing we are. He's just more ruthless about finding it.'

'So our enemy isn't Kevin.'

He shook his head. 'Make no mistake, it is. Kevin's out of control, and Jonathan doesn't care what kind of damage the kid does, so long as he's left free to do what he likes. In fact, Jonathan's using the kid as a conduit. It all comes down to the kid. We have to stop him.'

'And the missing Djinn?'

'One thing at a time.'

I nodded. 'Okay. How do I get over to the Bellagio?'

He gave me a genuinely sweet smile. 'Nice day for a walk, or so I hear.'

'You're coming with?'

'I'm not letting you out of my sight.' When I raised my eyebrows silently, he did echoed the gesture. 'David will kill me if I let something happen to you.'

I cleared my threat. 'Yeah… speaking of… is he…'

'Around?' Lewis's smile turned positively cruel. 'You'd know more about that than I would. We work together, sometimes-doesn't mean we're the best of friends. Especially not where you're concerned. If he knew I'd just spent the night here-'

'Hey! Nothing happened!'

'Only because I'm at the point of death.' He clutched his chest and mimed an elaborate choking. Except it wasn't really funny. He was at the point of death. 'Sorry. It's sort of weirdly amusing from this end. It's the first time in my life you considered me safe to sleep with.'

I lowered my gaze to contemplate the practical. As in, shoes. I had the left one on and was toeing the right when I heard a rumble of thunder, and felt the flashover of power. Hot and fast.

I looked up. Lewis was already heading for the windows. 'Were we expecting rain?' I asked.

'Not in the forecast.'

'That doesn't exactly feel natural…'

I stopped, because he hauled back the curtains, and we both saw it at the same time. There was a storm forming outside. A big goddamn storm, purple-black, swelling like a tumor. The anvil cloud stretched dizzyingly high, a gray-white tower thrusting up practically to the troposphere. The amount of power in that monster was growing exponentially.

Worse, it had rotation. Big rotation. I watched the edges that were rapidly expanding