Weather Warden - Chill Factor Part 6

"That's our bargaining chip. To Kevin, one Djinn's pretty much like another. He doesn't know Jonathan. He doesn't know how much more powerful Jonathan is than any of the others. That's why we're going to offer a trade."

"A trade?"

He held my eyes. "Jonathan for David."

"What?" I jerked upright, tried to pull my hands apart. Marion's vine compensated by wrapping tighter. The slick, living feeling of it moving on my skin made me want to run screaming, but I forced myself to relax. Deep breaths. "You're kidding. Tell me you're kidding." Nothing from him but that slow, steady stare. Come on, Lewis, lie to me at least. Make a d.a.m.n joke. Something. "You can't give him David!"

"We'd be a h.e.l.l of a lot better off," Paul rumbled. "That Djinn you've got ain't no small fry, but he's a quantum level of trouble down from the current situation. And he's been in bad situations before. He even knows the kid."

"David can take care of himself." Lewis's eyes were inhumanly gentle. "We can recover him later. It's a temporary situation."

"You can say that? What, like Yvette was a temporary situation?

Like Bad Bob was a temporary situation? He's been through h.e.l.l, Lewis. I'm not letting you put him through more just because it's convenient!"

"Jo, you need to remember that he's not a person; he's a tool." The compa.s.sion in Lewis's face was a cold, distant kind-the kind G.o.d might have when he looks down on all the unwashed billions.

"Discussion's over. This wasn't easy, and none of us want it. But we're up against the facts now, and the facts are that people are about to die. Millions of them. And if we can trade one Djinn, don't you think it's a good equation?"

"In theory. Try standing on my side of the equal sign."

Paul spoke up. "Look, I was hoping I wouldn't have to say it, but if you screw this up for us and we all survive it, that bottle over there gets sunk in a concrete block and dumped in the deepest pit in the ocean. David goes into history, trapped in that bottle. My hand to G.o.d."

Lewis held up his hand without looking away from me. "Paul, she knows the score. No need for that."

"Screw you!" I spat back.

"I need you to do this. I need you to do this. Just ... go home.

Leave this to us."

Jesus in polka dots, he was playing me. Moving me around the board like a chess piece. I could see the calculation behind the earnestness . . . and he was right. It didn't f.u.c.king matter that I was being manipulated, or even that David was being put at risk. Again.

I swallowed a rush of bitter betrayal, and said, "Fine. I'll go, but you ought to know that Kevin's not going to keep his end of the bargain. He won't give up Jonathan. He's too scared to do that, and h.e.l.l, maybe Jonathan doesn't even want to go. Ever thought of that?"

Lewis didn't look like he was listening. He was fixed on a spot somewhere beyond me, face blank.

"Lewis?"

He twitched. His eyes stayed fixed on the distance. I looked over at Marion, who took a step toward him.

Too late. His face went from pale to pallid, his eyes rolled up in their sockets, and his whole body went as rigid as that of a condemned man riding electric current. His face distorted, convulsed, and he slid out of the chair to thump down sideways on the area rug.

And then he began to convulse in the worst seizure I'd ever seen.

Everybody was eerily calm about it. Marion got down next to him and held his shoulders; Paul crouched at his feet. I watched Lewis's body spasm, fighting itself, tearing itself apart, and felt tears sting hot at my eyes. He was making choking sounds, and I could hear his muscles creaking.

Lewis was dying. h.e.l.l, the whole planet was tearing itself apart.

This was just the small-scale representation of it.

The convulsions stopped after about two minutes. Marion sat where she was, stroking hair from his pallid, sweating forehead with gentle motions. Lewis stayed down, relaxed now, gasping in heavy breaths and blinking slowly up at the ceiling.

"Well," he finally whispered, "that was embarra.s.sing."

I struggled for words. I wanted to hate him, but I couldn't. I just couldn't.

"I'll go quietly," I said. "That's what you want, right?"

He slowly focused on me, but I sensed he was too tired to lift his head. "Jo, this is so far from what I want. . . ."

"I don't need your apology."

He nodded, sucked in a breath, and blew it gently out. His eyes drifted closed. "Then I'll take a nap, if that's okay."

West murmured something sotto voce, and his Djinn appeared-a cowboy kind of guy, wind-burned and tough-looking-and scooped up Lewis in his arms like a broken toy. He walked away, out into the sun. I was left staring down at the empty s.p.a.ce on the rug, on the fallen cane that gleamed black and abandoned in the hotel lights, and in the silence the mad tinkle of that d.a.m.n fountain sounded as loud as thunder.

Marion said, "Lewis is the Earth. He's tied to it. We never understood that before, but there's something inside of him that can't be removed, and can't be stopped. He's dying, and it's manifesting itself around us. That's why we can't end this, even with all the power of the Djinn we have left. We need to get Lewis's powers back from Kevin, and we need to do it now. Jonathan took those powers away.

If we get Jonathan, we can set things right. It's the only way."

I nodded and shoved away the screaming panic at the back of my mind. My voice was surprisingly steady.

"Right," I said. "I'll go home. I suppose you're going to see me to the border."

Marion let me loose from the vine, once they were sure I was in a cooperative mood. I was allowed a last meal-this one in the Denny's restaurant in the motel parking lot, accompanied by my grim-eyed Warden guards and their invisible but ever-so-menacing Djinn. Not that I was planning on a great escape; I thought Lewis had a c.r.a.p plan, but it was still better than the nonplan I had. I'd tried it my way for three weeks, and I was no closer to getting the situation resolved than when I'd started. Time for somebody else to take a swing, even if it was a swing and a miss.

"So," I said around a mouthful of ham-and-cheese omelet, "which one of you lovely people is escorting me home? Because I don't think for a second you'll trust my word of honor."

Paul looked up, furious. His skin was splotched with red, his eyes bloodshot and raw. "Just stop it, will you?"

"Why?" I chewed another mouthful that tasted like ashes, and sucked coffee noisily just for the sake of annoying them. "Am I supposed to go like a lamb and say nice things about you? Screw you, Paul. You burned me."

I was almost sorry I said it when I saw the devastation on his face.

This really wasn't easy for him.

I looked at the rest of them. They avoided my gaze. "Gee, guys, none of you are coming with? That's too bad, 'cause you're just so darn much fun."

Paul put his hands over his face and leaned his elbows on the table. Behind him, the desert glittered in sunlight, fresh and dry and clean on the other side of plate gla.s.s. Inside, the bright yellow and retro-seventies rust decor looked desperate and grubby around the corners. The omelet I was eating needed salt. I added Tabasco sauce instead.

"We've got a lot to do," Paul said. I didn't stop dispensing Tabasco.

"We're meeting a couple of guys; they'll see you all the way home."

"Fabulous." I capped the pepper sauce and began mushing up the omelet to my satisfaction. "I hope you have a plan B handy, because your plan A sucks, and it's going to fall apart faster than a Yugoslavian car. I don't care what Kevin says; he's playing you. He's not giving up his Djinn."

Paul didn't have the moral courage to meet my gaze. "We've got a plan B."

"And yet this stands as the best option?" Silence around the table.

I tried a mouthful of coffee. It tasted like sludge. "Wow. We really are screwed."

"Jo, quit making this hard. I G.o.dd.a.m.n well just got over the shock of you not being dead. Can you quit mouthing off and let me be glad you're breathing for a while?"

"I'll quit being a b.i.t.c.h if you quit selling me and mine down the river." I didn't really want to keep on hurting him, but I couldn't stop.

Facing things with fort.i.tude wasn't really my strong suit. Since screaming and crying were out, insults were what I had left.

We tacitly agreed to a mutual cease-fire, to chew in peace.

I finished up and excused myself to the bathroom. Marion started to go with me. "Please," I said, and fixed her with a smile that didn't match what I was feeling. "You know I'm coming back. Where can I run? Jesus, let me pee one time in private. I give you my oath as a Warden that I'll come back." I held up my right hand, palm out, and the rune there glittered blue up on the aetheric. Truth, for anybody with the eyes to see it.

Marion nodded and sank back down in the leatherette chair. She folded her hands together and watched me gravely as I walked away, headed for the door marked with the skirt hieroglyphic. The plastic fake-wood finish had a tacky film on it, a consequence of being located too close to the fry baskets. I didn't actually have to pee, but I needed a minute alone. A minute to stare at myself in the harsh fluorescent light, at the curling, still-damp hair and pallid face, at the dark blue eyes that seemed too haunted to belong to me. When I'd been Djinn, they'd been silver, bright as dimes.

I looked tired. I tugged irritably at my hair, which was not supposed to curl like that, and seemed destined to be the bane of my existence for the rest of my ... probably very short life.

"Snow White."

A cold, gravel-rough whisper. I froze and looked around. Saw nothing. Heard an almost silent laugh that sounded like sandpaper over stone.

I felt goose b.u.mps breaking out all over my skin, and fought back a shiver. "Who's there?" I demanded. No feet under the two bathroom stalls. n.o.body else in the room except my reflection.

You know. I didn't know if that voice was in my head, or put there from outside. Creepy, either way. I stared hard into the mirror, let myself float up into the aetheric, and finally spotted something that didn't quite belong. A flicker. Use your eyes. Except that my eyes were just plain human these days, not Djinn; I couldn't see in every spectrum, every level of the world. And what was talking to me didn't exist in this one.

Shall I lend you mine?

Something happened in my head, a sharp, tearing pain, and then I was seeing edges to things that weren't there, colors that had texture and depth and no name in the world I lived in.

In the corner, shadows flowed black into a shape that glittered like faceted coal. Spiderlike. Dangerous.

An Ifrit. A failed, twisted Djinn.

A vampire.

Sara? No, it couldn't be Sara; she'd died along with Patrick, both giving up their essences to create a human body to house me. It was someone else. Who . . . ?

Who else called me Snow White? "Rahel?"

Lumps of coal have no expression. She didn't move. I took a step toward her, saw the edges of her start to fray as if she might disappear. "Rahel, wait. Please."

Can't stay.

"Why not?"

Hungry.

Ifrits ate Djinn. I had a sudden, startling moment of grat.i.tude that David was safely locked in the case at Marion's feet, out there in the restaurant. Much as I liked Rahel-if this was Rahel-I didn't want her munching on my lover.

My relationship with her was complicated at best. As a Free Djinn, she'd been my friend, sometimes my enemy; she'd acted to save my life at least once. And I hadn't been able to stop her from being destroyed not so long ago. This wasn't really Rahel. It was the zombie sh.e.l.l of her, undead and undying.

I wanted strongly for her to go away.

"What do you want?" I asked She answered me silently. Give me food. Tell you things.

"What kind of things?"

Things to save you.

Her voice was getting fainter in my head, the edges of her looking misty. This was one h.e.l.l of an effort for her, communicating on this plane of existence. Clearly she needed a recharge to continue. Too bad I didn't carry any handy snack-sized Djinn.

The bathroom door opened, and Marion came in. She ignored me and walked right to a stall, went in, and clicked the lock. The satchel with David's bottle went with her, which gave me the total w.i.l.l.i.e.s; the Ifrit's head turned to follow her, but she didn't attack. I went to the sink and ran water, scrubbed my hands, and watched the black shadow in the corner. Rahel hadn't moved, but she was fainter now.

"Stay with me," I whispered. I saw nothing, heard nothing in my head, but somehow I knew she'd received the message and agreed. I watched her shadow dissolve completely.

"What?" Marion's voice. I shut the water off and reached for a towel.

"Nothing."

That probably wasn't a lie.

When I came back out, there were two new faces at the table. Paul nodded at them. "Jo, this is Carl Cooper and Lel Miller. They'll be taking you home."

Carl was bland. His hair was dishwater blond and thinning fast; he had thin lips out of practice for smiling. His eyes were hidden by aviator sungla.s.ses, but I had the strong impression that he wouldn't have been any more expressive if I'd been able to see his baby blues.

Lel Miller was a different story altogether. Tall, leggy, gorgeously tanned. She had quite the salon finish, right down to the well-kept gleam of her French manicure. I held up my palm in the traditional Warden hi-there; they each followed suit, and in the aetheric, our runes glittered.

"Charmed," Lel said. She had a s.e.xy contralto purr. She extended a hand to me, palm down, as if she expected me to kiss it.

I took it and examined the bracelet chiming around her wrist.

"Nice," I said. "Velada?"

She looked impressed. She reclaimed her hand to pet the silver chain and ornaments, which were small clouds and lightning bolts.

"Yes. You know your jewelry."

Paul rolled his eyes. "If it gets worn, she knows about it," he said.

"Go ahead. Show her your shoes."

Lel obligingly extended an elegant leg in denim. I glanced at the footwear for a second, looked back into her lovely hazel eyes, and said, "Kenneth Cole." She gave me a self-satisfied smirk. "Knockoffs,"

I finished. "Probably Taiwan."

The smile went wherever bad smiles go, and she yanked her leg back out of sight. "I wasn't dressing for the prom," she shot back. I thought about pointing out that Velada jewelry was hardly appropriate for breakfast at Denny's, but gave it up. h.e.l.l, my shoes were out of pedigree, too. It happens.

Paul was going to lengths to hide a smile. Marion wasn't even bothering. "Okay," Paul said. "Sounds like you guys are going to get along great. You know the route?"