Chill Factor

through your blood to get what they want. I can't stop them unless you help me.'

'Jonathan will-'

'Jonathan,' I cut him off, 'will do just as Jonathan sees fit, and if you're not useful to him anymore, kiss your ass good-bye. Get me?'

He didn't want to, but he got me. Kevin played with a frayed hole in his jeans, glared at me from under a fringe of ragged, unwashed hair, and didn't seem to notice that his hooker girlfriend was rubbing his back for comfort. I took a second to scan her over more closely, then took a good hard look up on the aetheric.

She wasn't more than she seemed. Just a girl, nothing special, no Warden powers, no Ma'at glyphs. The longer I stared at her, the more I saw… a fragile blush of gold in her aura, like soft morning. Black slashes beneath of greed and pain. She had a bad history, but so did Kevin… that was what drew the two of them together. The dark gravity of desperation.

'You're running from something,' I said to her, and saw her flinch in both the real world and the aetheric. 'Someone.'

'Maybe.' Bravado wasn't her strong suit. 'None of your business.'

'Someone here in town? Who is it?' I had an instinct, and followed it. 'Quinn. Quinn has something on you.'

No answer. Siobhan stared at me with pretty, empty eyes, and I switched back to Kevin. He'd reached out for her hand, like a boyfriend, not a trick. And I saw the corresponding flicker and glow of her aura.

True love. How romantic.

Kevin took in a deep breath, glanced at his girl, then back at me. 'You're right,' he said. It was the most adult tone I'd ever heard him use. 'I got stupid. I shouldn't have taken that guy Lewis's powers… Hell, I don't even know how to, you know, do stuff with them. Well… I did some things…'

'Like what?'

'You know. Things. Like… made girls' T-shirts see-through. And there was this flower garden-I made it grow and gave Siobhan a rose.'

'That was nice,' she said.

He shrugged, indifferent. Only someone his age could be bored by ultimate power. He brightened up and continued, 'I got GWAR to do a free concert downstairs, you know, in the lobby. With the blood and everything. It was cool, especially when they were cleaning it up later-they all kept yelling at each other about who let it happen. Pretty funny.'

That was the human race, all right; a thrash-metal band shows up, plays at ear-bleeding volume, and everybody blames the next guy. Management was probably still shaking in their Bruno Maglis. I wondered why security hadn't put a stop to it, and realized that Jonathan had probably found it just as funny as Kevin.

Guys. What can you do?

'And there was that fire; that was cool.' Siobhan said, eyes gleaming. Kevin shot her a look, and she got off the subject fast. 'I said he should rub the lamp or whatever and say he never wants to work again, but he said that was stupid, that he'd end up paralyzed or dead or something.'

Which was what I'd threatened him with, back in the bad old days of Kevin being my lord and master. I couldn't restrain a smile. Kevin's answering one was thin and fragile, and shattered when a far-off rumble of thunder sounded. He turned his face to the windows and looked out.

Even tired and drained as I was, I felt the pulse of power that went out of him-unfocused, overdone, like a cruise missile swatting a gnat. The clouds literally exploded into vapor, veiling the sun, and then vanished completely.

In three seconds, it was hot and clear as far as the eye could see.

Kevin turned back to me and saw me staring, lips parted.

'I don't like rain,' he said flatly.

He'd always had Fire Warden powers, but it was surprising he was doing this kind of weather manipulation with Lewis's stolen bag of tricks. And that he was learning to use it without Jonathan's tutelage. No, on reflection, not surprising: alarming. 'You shouldn't-'

He interrupted. 'You don't tell me what to do. Nobody gets to tell me what to do, ever again.'

I shut my mouth. No percentage in arguing with him, not now. His mood had changed again, just like the weather-gone dark and morose, in contrast to the bright shininess beyond the glass-and I'd seen Kevin in dark moods before. Not good. When he was scared he lashed out, and right now I didn't have the strength or the ability to go toe-to-toe with the little jerk.

We stared at each other in silence for a few long seconds, and then Kevin blinked and, still surly, said, 'You want I should fix that stuff?'

'What stuff?'

For answer, he reached out and took hold of my wrist. I tried to pull back, but he was stronger than he looked-weedy, but roped with muscle-and then I felt the hot tingle and knew what he was doing.

I stared down at my exposed skin as the cuts turned pink, puckered closed, and sealed up. I felt things shifting inside, healing. The heat made me break out in a fast sweat, and the tingle turned to a more localized heat. Deep down. Really deep.

'Stop,' I panted. Kevin kept holding on. 'Stop it!' I yanked free, breaking contact, and knew my face was flushed. He'd been healing me, but he'd also been playing with me. Siobhan had taught him some tricks, consciously or not. He gave me a smug grin and settled back with a proprietary arm around his girl.

I wiped blood and sweat from my arms with the blanket and saw that he'd done it perfectly-no cuts, not even faint scars to mark where they'd been. I even felt energized. He'd pumped up my blood supply, too, made my bone marrow go into overdrive. Dangerous, but effective.

I looked down at the rest of me, sighing at the oversize T-shirt and too-large black leggings, and Siobhan-who had a professional understanding of the importance of wardrobe-jumped up and ran to the closet. She dug around and pulled out a pair of low-rise blue jeans and a crop top that would, with imagination, just barely manage to be decent.

I accepted the jeans, and found a red mesh T-shirt with a Chinese design to cover up the crop top. Since I'd gone without a bra this morning, and rejected the sweaty jog bra from the car, some layering was going to be crucial.

The Bellagio had thoughtfully provided a lovely stained-glass screen in the corner, probably just for decoration, but I went behind it and changed. The jeans fit, barely; I had to bite my lips and suck in a breath to get them zipped up. The crop top felt like hookerwear, but the mesh top redeemed it. When I stepped back out, Kevin had turned on the plasma TV again and was watching a writhing knot of bodies on screen.

'Get your head out of Penthouse Letters; it's never gonna happen,' I said, and reclaimed the remote to flick the power button again. I sat again, leaned elbows on blue-jeaned knees, and looked from one of them to the other. 'Here's the deal, kids. You've got exactly three options. You can give up-'

'Never gonna happen,' Kevin said.

'Or you can die, because those guys out there, they will kill you. And believe me, they want to do it sooner rather than later.'

Kevin's throat bobbed as he swallowed. He must have read the sincerity in my eyes. 'You said there were three options.'

'Yeah.' I leaned back. 'You can help me.'

'Help you do what?'

I smiled slowly. 'Save the world.'

He hesitated just exactly the right amount of time to indicate how cool he was, and then said, 'Yeah, whatever.'

NINE

First things first. I picked up the hotel phone, dialed a number from memory, and when Marion answered, I