Chill Factor

bottle's gone.'

'Gone?' Lazlo repeated softly. There was danger in there, hiding in the silky half-whisper.

'Quinn has it,' I replied. 'As you probably know, right? He's your dog.'

Lazlo shut his eyes wearily.

'You killed Siobhan!' Kevin yelled, and tried to get out of the chair to lunge at Lazlo, or anyone else in reach. I wasn't sure whom he was directing the accusation toward, but I figured it was probably all of us.

'I'm afraid we did, but not deliberately.' Lazlo rubbed his forehead and forced himself back to dignified attention. 'And I'm afraid we put you in danger as well, Miss Baldwin. It was not our intention.'

'It's been Quinn all along,' I said. 'Right? Quinn wanted Jonathan. I'll bet it was his idea to 'rescue' me, too, when I first arrived.'

Nobody made a sound. I turned toward Kevin. 'Quinn put Siobhan in there to try to steal the bottle. Kevin, I think she did like you, but I'm pretty sure Quinn had some kind of hold over her. He was a cop, after all.' Siobhan had picked up Jonathan's bottle when I'd dropped it. She'd put it in her pocket. She'd given me back the decoy.

Like I'd noticed from the start. She was a professional.

'He's the one who shot Siobhan?' Kevin asked. His hands were still shaking, but he looked feral now, especially spattered with her blood. Ready to gnaw his own arm off if it would get him a step closer to Quinn. 'Why? Why would he do that?'

'Because I ducked,' I said flatly. I turned toward Lewis, knelt down next to his chair with my arms braced on his knees. 'He was shooting at me, and it wasn't about Jonathan. Not that time.'

He looked at me through bleary eyes. 'Then what?'

'Question for a question. What's his first name?'

Someone made a sound halfway between a huh? and an uh-oh, she's lost her mind; I didn't bother to check who. Lewis looked at me with feverish, red-rimmed eyes and said, 'His name is Detective Thomas Quinn.'

Which wasn't what I'd expected. It threw me for a second, but then Lazlo cleared his throat. His lips twisted like a man having surgery done with a sharp spoon and no anesthetic, and he said sourly, 'Thomas Orenthal Quinn.' Laz was already ahead of the curve. He'd heard my story. He knew.

'Orry,' I said. 'No wonder he wanted me dead. He couldn't know how much I remembered. He didn't know whether or not I'd recognize him-I didn't; it was too long ago, I never really saw his face, but he couldn't take the chance that I was running some big-time double-crossing game. I think he would have killed me earlier, but he was afraid to do it in the Luxor. Afraid you'd know. He felt better after he heard me tell the story to Ashworth, but he still didn't trust me. When I ended up over there again, he figured I might have figured it out. Couldn't have that.'

Jonathan had said it: The lines connected through me. I was the nexus of so many things here, including- especially-this.

Thomas Orenthal Quinn: Orry. Chaz Ashworth III had died taking me to his boss, Orry… and at the time, I'd assumed that Orry's business had been all about drugs. It probably was, in the beginning. Easy money for both of them.

I'd been right in the same room with the man who'd inhabited my nightmares for years, and I never even knew it. Hell, I'd even liked him.

Suddenly the enormity of it crashed down on me… David, turning to ash and shadows; Siobhan, dying in my place; Lewis, dying right now, dying as I watched. I could see it happening. I'd let Jonathan be taken away when I'd had the answer in my hands, because I hadn't been fast enough or good enough or smart enough to see.

'Joanne?' Marion's voice, Marion's warm hand on my shoulder. I looked up at her and realized how tired she was. Her Djinn had been taken from her, held ransom for her good behavior. Quinn had been working the angles for a long, long time.

A cold shiver went down my spine. 'When did your Djinn disappear?'

'Five years ago.' From her expression, I'd bet that Marion could have told me down to the day, hour, minute, and second.

I felt my hands curl into fists. Five years ago. 'How long have the Djinn been disappearing?'

'In numbers?' Lewis asked. 'About six years. Maybe less.'

Since Chaz. Since Orry in the desert.

Since I'd gone into that dark, dark cave and he'd asked me questions.

I felt Lewis take my hand, and despite the weakness I knew was ravaging his body, he managed to squeeze it tight enough to make me wince.

'David?' he asked. He read the answer in my eyes. 'What happened?'

'Rahel. She…' My throat threatened to close up when I thought about it. 'She was after Jonathan. David wouldn't let her…' I couldn't get the rest of it out. It had been a battle nobody else had seen, could see, except for me-the Ifrit would have been invisible to most human eyes.

'Where are they?'

My hand went involuntarily to the leather purse hanging slung around my body. 'I put David back in his bottle. Rahel… I claimed her. Put her in the bottle Siobhan used to switch for Jonathan.'

Lewis let go of me and held out his hand. 'Give her to me.' I started to unzip the purse, then hesitated. 'Not a whole lot of time left, Jo. Do it.'

I took out the bottle and gave it to him. No sensation one way or another; I hadn't felt any click of connection with Rahel, and I didn't feel any loss of it now. But Lewis did, clearly; I saw him suck in a breath and sit up straighter, and for just a second his dulled eyes took on a ferocious gleam.

'She fed off of Jonathan?' he asked.

'Not really sure how much of it was Jonathan and how much was David, but she took a lot.' I felt my stomach do that slow drop and roll again. 'David- he's bad. I don't know if he's-'

'He's not dead,' Lewis said. The way he said it, almost dismissively, made me give him a sharp look and want to follow it up with a sharp right hook, except it wouldn't have exactly been a fair fight. In a tussle between Lewis and a plastic grocery sack, I'd give two to one on the bag.

He opened his fist, and I realized that Siobhan's blood had transferred from my hand to his; it was smeared in dull red clouds over the bottle. I squinted, because it looked as if those dull red clouds were moving. Swirling over the surface of the glass.

Being absorbed.

I felt a fast, hot surge of nausea. What's the matter, Rahel, eating Djinn wasn't enough for you? Now you're snacking on human blood, too?

'What the hell are you doing?' I snapped at him, and pulled myself back upright to step away, glaring. He considered the bottle balanced on the palm of his hand for a few seconds, then looked up at me with an unreadable expression.

'I don't think I have to do anything. Mazel tov,' he said, and dropped the bottle to the carpet. Then he levered himself out of the wheelchair, lifted his foot, and stomped on the glass hard enough to shatter it.

Something pulsed through the room in a silent explosion. It was a ruffle of wind in the real world, a white wave of pure energy in the aetheric; I felt it tug hard inside me as it passed, and the Djinn-child inside of me vibrated like a tuning fork. I instinctively took another step back and covered my stomach with both hands, but the kick I felt wasn't pain; it was something like delight.

A flash of hot gold from the corner of my eye, and then a shadow, moving… shadow taking form, function, grace. Walking with a loose-limbed stride as she formed herself out of the air, out of legend and memory and power.

Rahel's hair was short now, the cornrows reduced to an elegant half-inch crop around the perfect noble sculpture of her head. It set off the line of her cheekbones, the full, lush curve of her lips.

Her eyes blazed hot, hot, hot amber.

She was wearing black, which I'd never seen her do. Black silk shirt flowing over her lean, muscular body, showing off just enough curves to make her feminine. Kind of a retro look for her, very seventies. Hip-hugging black pants, wide belt, no-nonsense kick-ass boots.