Chill Factor (Weather Warden #3)

Chill Factor (Weather Warden #3) Page 30

Oh, God. I don't know what I expected to see, but not this.

The rest of Las Vegas was untouched. Literally untouched. Windows intact, buildings still standing. The Eiffel Tower still climbed toward the sky, and the half-scale Statue of Liberty raised her torch.

The Bellagio was barely damaged, overall. Just the casino area, and just our casino area.

The Ma'at had targeted us. They'd done all this just to get us. Or worse... maybe, considering who Quinn was shooting at, to get me.

I felt the comforting ice of shock start to break up around me, dumping me in the cold water of reality.

Sink or swim, now. Give up and die, or make it mean something.

"Marion?" I licked my lips and tasted blood, swallowed grit and bitterness. "How many people-"

She looked exhausted under the paling layer of dust. Her hair was coming loose from its meticulous braid, and her leather jacket was ripped and shredded in places. When she wiped her forehead, she left streaks of still-wet blood.

"No fatalities. We were able to minimize it," she said. "Me and the kid." She cut her eyes toward Kevin, who was wrapped in silence and his own blanket, sitting on the curb while a paramedic tried to get information out of him. Miraculous. There'd be news coverage twenty-four/seven for the next few months, going over and over the freak earthquake, the survivors. Pundits would come on the airwaves to talk about all kinds of crackpot theories, everything from international terrorists to James Bond superweapons. None of them would get it right.

Please God, nobody would get it right.

"He could be great, you know. If anyone cared enough to show him how."

Marion was still watching Kevin. I nodded. "If nobody kills him first."

"See that they don't."

The paramedics were working their way around to us. "We need to get out of here," I said. "Before they get our names."

Marion nodded. She understood the need for secrecy now, as I did.

"Better use your Djinn," I finished. She looked down at the ground. "Marion?"

"He's gone," she said. "He was taken from me five years ago."

No wonder I'd never seen him. "Why? What happened?"

She heaved in a silent breath. "He was stolen from me."

"And you never told..." No, of course she hadn't. Losing a Djinn was practically a hanging offense in the upper ranks of the Wardens. It was something you kept quiet while you got your bottle back, and your life with it. You were supposed to die before losing your Djinn. Oh, it happened-bottles broke, bottles were lost in catastrophes-but there were penalties, and very few replacements.

"I was told," Marion said softly, "that if I reported it, they'd torture him. I believed it."

I wanted to ask a million questions, but this wasn't the time or the place. Too exposed. My skin kept crawling, trying to feel the nonexistent pressure of a laser sight.

I felt a hand on my arm, and turned.

Jonathan. God! I'd forgotten all about him...

He had on his most rigid, focused expression. "Not much time," he said. "He found the bottle. Listen, I'll delay him as much as I can. You know where to find him-"

"What the hell are you talking about? I don't understand!" I grabbed for Jonathan's shoulder, made a fist out of the black fabric of his shirt, and tried to pull him closer. It was like trying to pull a pile of lead. He had the specific gravity of a mountain. "Tell me what's happening, dammit, and no goddamn Djinn evasion!"

His dark eyes glittered and went to narrow slits. "I've been claimed. You know this guy! We're going to fant-"

Blip. He was gone, instantly gone in midsyllable. I caught a flicker of something in his eyes-impotent rage, maybe a tiny flash of fear-and I sucked in a startled breath. I spun around, hard, and plunged back toward the casino, where emergency workers were swarming like hornets. Marion wrapped her arms around me and dragged me to a stop.

"No!" she said sharply. "You can't go back."

"I left him! Jonathan's bottle... have to get it back!"

"It's too late." She was too strong, and her voice was too compassionate. "Someone just commanded him. You can't get it back."

"Son of a bitch!" I sucked in a wet, trembling breath. "Let go. Let go!"

I wrenched free, but she'd convinced me; when she released me, I stopped trying to bull my way back inside. I'd left Jonathan's bottle, somehow, some way... how the hell...

I remembered in a blinding flash.

Siobhan, slipping the fallen bottle into her pocket. Me demanding it back.

She'd switched bottles. And now someone- probably Quinn-had taken it off her corpse. Siobhan had been working for him. Son of a bitch, I couldn't believe that I'd let it slip past me.

Marion raised her head to look, and her face went blank and grim. Eyes like flint, ready to spark.

"Don't look now," she said, "but the cavalry's arrived."

I turned my head.

A group of maybe twenty, pushing through the crowd of looky-loos; the one in front was a distinguished-looking older man in a spotless blue suit, with a silk tie in tasteful gray.

Myron Lazlo. Next to him, Charles Ashworth II flourished his ebony cane. No sign of Quinn at all in that pack of grim-faced men (and a few women).

The Ma'at had come to restore the balance.

TEN

The Ma'at manhandled Kevin somewhat-impersonally, at least-but Marion and I went willingly. We slipped through the chaos behind the hastily erected disaster barriers, heading for the Luxor. The heat quickly made the blankets unbearable, so we shed them at the first available park bench for the homeless.

I kept a hand clenched on the leather of the purse slung around my body, the other splayed over the still-warm spark of life in my womb. I was carrying too many lives. Too much responsibility.

None of the Ma'at said a word as we headed for the Luxor. We were going against the flow of traffic, everything and everyone moving toward the smoky smudge that marked the Bellagio event. The lobby of the Luxor was deserted, except for a marked security presence who eyed us nervously but waved us past when Lazlo displayed some kind of credentials. Back to the private rooms again, but to a larger one this time. Ballroom-sized, but with the feel of an old school gentlemen's club, the kind without strippers. Lots of dark woods and deep carpets, port and sherry and uniformed butlers in tails.

Their symbol, set in stained glass above the door, was an ankh.

"Sir." The head butler, who looked as severe and professional as any of the Ma'at, headed straight for Lazlo. "What do you require?" British accent, of course. Nothing else would do for a place like this.

"I think some brandy might be in order. Thank you, Blevins."

Blevins inclined his head. I wondered what school you attended to learn how to be arrogant and servile at the same time, and still maintain that enormous amount of personal dignity. His eyes-blue as summer skies, startlingly-swept over me, then Marion, then Kevin. He turned on his heel and walked away.

We were led to chairs. Kevin was forcibly planted in one, and held there by a Djinn I remembered. Mr. Clean, he of the heroically bare chest, little brocade vest, and puffy trousers, not to mention shaved head and earring. The one that Rahel had taken a bite out of earlier.

He smiled at me with shark teeth. There was no welcome hiding there. "I remember you," he rumbled. "You came looking for trouble before."

"I found it," I said. He inclined his head.

A solemn voice behind me called my name. "Jo."

I turned, winced at the bite of bruises, and saw Lewis approaching. Or rather, being rolled up to us. He was in a wheelchair now, faded and thin, worse by far than he'd been when I'd been sucked out the window. He was crashing. There were hectic spots of red high in his cheeks, but his hands were trembling and he looked feverish and not altogether sane.

He wasn't looking at me, even though he'd spoken my name; his eyes were fixed on Kevin, and I didn't like what I saw there.

"We come to a turning point," said Lazlo solemnly. "Boy. It's time to give back what you stole."

I could have told him what Kevin would say, so I wasn't surprised when the kid snapped back, "Bite me, Grandpa. I'm not giving up anything."

"He no longer has Jonathan," I said. All eyes went to me. I straightened my shoulders under the pressure. "The 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."