Thin Air

She wasn’t kidding. Heat swept over me, and then a feeling of being instantly flash-frozen, and then every nerve in my body screamed as one…

…and then I was on my knees in deep, soft carpeting the exact color of caramel.

I pitched forward, face-first, and tried to scream, because whatever had just happened to me was wrong even by the considerably liberal standards of wrongness I was getting used to.

I couldn’t make a sound.

I watched as my body started to come out of its invisibility, growing shadows first, then a kind of translucent reality, and then I was flesh and blood again.

And I could scream, but this time, I managed to lock it in my throat and moderate it to a helpless sort of whimper.

My benefactor-if you could call her that-walked around to face me. I looked up. Not far up, because she was only about four feet tall, cute as a button, a perfect little blond girl with inhumanly blue eyes and an outfit straight out of Alice in Wonderland, complete with patent leather Mary Janes.

“You can get up now,” she said. “I don’t think you’re hurt.”

Not hurt? She had to be kidding. I rolled slowly on my side and worked my way up to a sitting position, bracing myself with my arms. Standing up was not on the menu, not yet.

“What-” My voice was a hoarse croak; I cleared my throat and tried again. “What the hell did you do to me? Who-?”

“My name is Venna,” she said. “I’m Djinn.”

No freakin’ kidding. I stared at her mutely, and she folded her hands over the front of her white pinafore and stared right back without blinking.

“You don’t remember me,” she said. Not a question. “You used to call me Alice. You could call me that again, if you like.” She said it with the generosity of a noble dispensing a penny to a peasant. I just kept on staring. Why I’d know her as Alice was pretty self-evident, given her appearance. I was waiting for the Red Queen and the Mad Hatter to join the party. “I had to take you away. You couldn’t fight her. She was taking you apart, and if I hadn’t stopped you, you’d be dead now.”

I finally found my voice. “Did David send you?”

Venna’s blue eyes didn’t blink, and her expression didn’t shift, but I sensed that she was choosing her next words too carefully. “David cannot send me anywhere,” she said. I wanted for her to get around to a further explanation. It wasn’t forthcoming.

“I need to go back,” I said. “She’ll kill everybody back there.”

“No,” Venna said. “She killed the ones who saw you together. Now she’s convincing the rest that she is you.”

“She-wait, what?”

“She’s given herself up. She will tell them that she has recovered her memories-and that will be true, because the Demon already had them. She will tell them that she’s you, and…” Venna shrugged. “They will believe her.”

“But-that can’t happen. That can’t happen!” She just looked at me. Obviously, it could. “They’ll know. Lewis will know.”

She was already shaking her head. “Any doubts can be explained away. She’s been through a great trauma. Any of them can tell that, and they won’t disbelieve her story.”

I grasped at my last straw. “David! David will figure it out. Hello, mother of his child! Surely he knows me better than-”

“He would know if she could be perceived as a Demon. She’s different now. He also has no reason not to accept her.” Venna’s eyes seemed to get deeper, darker, and scarier. She looked twelve, and twelve hundred. Twelve thousand. “You can’t win this by going against her. It will only destroy you, and everyone who believes you.”

I found I was able to get up, and staggered across the carpet to a king-sized bed, where I collapsed in an untidy sprawl. “So what am I supposed to do? What if she follows me?”

Venna cocked her head at me, interested as a robin with a worm. “Do as I say,” she said. “You will be safe here, so long as you don’t go out or talk to anyone. She can only find you when she’s close-the same way you can sense her. As long as you avoid attracting attention, you’ll be fine. I am going to retrieve someone who can help you.”

I had just enough spark left to ask, “Who?”

“Ashan,” she said.

“David was looking for him.”

“I know.” Venna smiled slowly. Not a comforting kind of smile. “I’ve been keeping him safe; David would have killed him. And now we need him, so it’s good that I got him, don’t you think?”

I had no idea what to say to that. Venna smoothed down her dress, nodded to me gravely, and walked off into…thin air. Just…gone.

She came back, silent as a ghost, for a few seconds, to say, “You understand…don’t go out? Don’t talk to anyone? I’ve put clothing in the closet for you. Don’t go out.”

I nodded. I might not understand much of this, but that part, I got. And hey, not a bad place, as hideouts went. I was in a big, well-appointed hotel room, immaculately clean, with a big plasma TV on the wall, a comfy bed, and- visible through the open door-a gigantic whirlpool tub.

Venna gave me one last doubtful look, then vanished. I waited, but she didn’t come back to check. So I got up, went to the window, and pulled the brocade curtains.

Below, a whole city stretched out, a dizzying array of architectural marvels, fountains, people, lights, cars, dazzling sunlight. There was a gigantic Sphinx’s rear end pointed toward my room, about seven stories down. The window sloped, and when I craned out for a look, I saw the building itself was sloped, like the side of a pyramid.

A hospitality book on the desk identified the hotel as the MGM Grand, Las Vegas.

That seemed weirdly familiar to me, but staring out at the landscape didn’t seem helpful.

I went to try out the tub instead.

SEVEN

I was up to my neck in suds and blessedly warm water, experimenting with the various controls for the water jets, when I heard the door to the room open and close. I’d shut the bathroom door, so I couldn’t hear or see anything else. I waited, but Venna didn’t knock, and the last thing I wanted was to face her naked and dripping, anyway. I scrambled up, toweled off, and put on the underwear, blue jeans, black shirt and plain flat shoes that had been Venna’s idea of appropriate costume.

I walked out, prepared to find out what kind of trouble I was in now, but it wasn’t Venna.

And the two people I walked in on didn’t even know I was there, at least not at first. I had to give them credit, they were very fast off the blocks-the clothing trail started at the door, with his tie, and finished in a heap at the foot of the bed. They were definitely not paying attention to me, quite, um, vigorously.

I tried tiptoeing to the door, and didn’t quite get halfway there before the woman-leggy, redheaded, with a model’s perfect ass, which had been on major display-caught sight of me and shrieked, falling off of her boyfriend, who thrashed around like a wounded seal in a shark tank. I held up my hands and backed toward the door.

“What the hell are you doing in our room?” he yelled, and came off the bed at me, still stark naked. I backed away, faster.

“Um…sorry, room inspector, I was just…making sure you had toilet paper, and…so, you like the bed? Brand- new bed. Very bouncy.” I was babbling, shaking, and I kept fierce eye contact with him because the temptation for my gaze to wander was…overwhelming. I felt the handle of the door dig into my back, reached behind me, and twisted it open. “Sorry, sir, ma’am. Please, enjoy your stay…”