Chill Factor (Weather Warden #3)

He led me down the two steps, over to Paul. Paul held out his hand again.

I can't.

I let the bottle drop from a height of about a foot, from my hand to Paul's. David could have intervened. Could have jostled Paul, made him fumble the catch; could have, in that split second, blown the bottle across the room to shatter against faux stone.

I gave him that chance.

He did nothing.

Paul caught the glass container, and I felt the connection explode, melt away into silence. Even though David was holding my hand, he was gone, gone from me. Even his skin felt insubstantial.

His eyes turned dark. Human. Brown.

Sad and quiet and-hiding just under the surface-wary.

"Good choice, kids," Paul said. He looked tired and unhappy as he looked at David. "Back in the bottle, please."

I could feel David trying to fight, but the pull was irresistible, and in a sudden convulsive flicker he was gone. Paul reached out for the stopper, which I handed over as well. My fingers felt numb.

I watched as he worked the stopper into the bottle. The four Wardens seemed to breathe a sigh of relief. Paul handed the bottle to Marion, who took a black magic marker out of her pocket and wrote a rune on the bottle itself. A sign, I recognized, that was a kind of mystical DO NOT OPEN, CONTENTS UNDER PRESSURE. She opened a leather satchel sitting next to the chair and eased the bottle into special padding, then closed and locked it.

"Okay." I pulled in a deep breath and tried to put the anger aside. "Now you've got David out of the way. When do I go?" Paul looked up, startled, frowning, as if I knew something I shouldn't. "Hello? Vegas? Meet and greet with Teen Psycho?"

Paul didn't answer me. Marion said softly, "Kevin doesn't want you, Joanne. He has no reason to trust you. You can't negotiate with him on our behalf."

My mind went blank. "Then why all this-"

To get David. To get David away from me, to play us against each other.

I had a sudden premonition of disaster even before Paul said, "You're going home, Jo. Now."

"Like hell!" I rounded on Marion, on the case where she'd put David.

And I heard Paul say flatly, " Marion, take her."

THREE

I had a couple of choices-one, I could fight like hell and trash the hotel and probably kill a whole lot of people, or two, I could give up and see where it took me.

I didn't like option two, but I liked option one even less, and when Marion moved toward me, power at the ready, I just stood still for it.

"Easy," she whispered to me, and wrapped something around my wrists behind my back that felt thick and organic. At her touch it stirred, writhed, and tightened into something tough and flexible. It couldn't cut me, but I wasn't likely to be breaking loose from it, either. Wind and water don't do much against the power of living things. It was probably some sort of vine she'd cultivated for times like these. "Nobody's going to hurt you, Joanne. Please trust me."

I'd never been able to trust her. Ever. I liked her, but her agendas and mine just didn't match and never had. Her hand rested lightly on my shoulder for a second, then pressed harder, guiding me to a chair. She sat me down, took out another vine from her pocket, and bound my ankles.

"Done?" Paul asked. She nodded and stepped back. Paul-my friend-got down on one knee next to the chair and looked me right in the eyes. "Go ahead. Ask."

"Okay," I said. I kept my voice low and calm, even though I wanted to scream at him-it wouldn't do a damn bit of good, and I might need a good screaming voice later. Right now, they were in control. Wait for an opportunity. "Use your heads. I can help you; you know I can. You can't afford to ignore the opportunity here. C'mon, guys. Wise up."

He was sweating, I noticed. Paul, the iceman, was sweating bullets, and there were dark patches under the arms of his nice, neat golf shirt.

"This goes way beyond personal feelings. Sorry, babe, but we don't have a choice here. We thought we could contain the kid, but things are too serious now. We need to deal, and with Jonathan on his side, he'll know if we're not playing straight. So you go home. This gets done without you."

"Who had that brilliant idea?" I shot back.

"I did." A new voice, coming from the corner. Paul looked over his shoulder, and I saw someone step out of the shadows from beneath the stairs.

It was old-home week at the Holiday Inn. I looked up into the tired, drawn face of Lewis Levander Orwell, my friend, once upon a time my lover, and saw the bleak, black acknowledgment of just how fucked-up all this was. And then I really saw, because he wasn't walking on his own. He had a cane, a fancy carved affair that had dragons running up the sides. Extra long, because he was pretty damned tall.

He'd lost more weight, gone from lanky to thin and fragile. His skin had a translucent ivory cast to it, as if he were fading away like a Djinn.

It was an effort for him to walk the four short steps to the chair across from me. No one tried to help him, but I could feel the weight of their attention, their concern. He sank into the plush brown velour with a sigh, propped the cane against the arm, and folded his hands together as he looked at me.

"You look like shit," I said bluntly. I surprised a thin smile out of him.

"Right back at ya. How much have you slept?"

"Averaged out, a couple of hours a day."

"Can't survive that way, Jo."

"You're one to talk."

Silence ticked. Lewis's eyes flicked aside to Paul. "Sorry about the drama. I'd have done this on my own, but frankly, I think you could kick my ass right now."

"I could kick your ass anytime," I shot back reflexively, but I was a little appalled by the fragility I saw in him. He looked... breakable. I'd never seen him like this, not even when he'd been hurt.

Lewis was dying. Really dying.

"Don't blame Paul for this. It was my decision."

That got my attention. "Since when do the Wardens take orders from you?" Because even though, technically, he was a Warden-the most powerful one in the world-he'd been on the outside a lot longer than he'd been in. Lewis wasn't a conformist, and he hadn't exactly risen through the chain of command.

In true form, he blew past the question. "We can't defeat Kevin by frontal assault. You already understand that."

"I'm having a hard time seeing how keeping me tied the hell up is winning the battle!"

"We need to talk to him. Persuade him to give up. It's our only real choice."

"How the hell are you going to get him to talk at all? He's holding all the cards!"

"You let me worry about that part." Lewis shifted, as if something inside hurt him. "First things first. We have to get Jonathan out of his hands. You agree?"

I had to. I knew what Jonathan was, and how important he was to the Free Djinn-plus, Kevin wouldn't have the leverage and force multipliers necessary to destroy the world if we took his Djinn away. "Sure."

Did I imagine it, or did Lewis's knuckles turn a little whiter? "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 damn joke. Something. "You can't give him David!"

"We'd be a hell 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 hell, 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 compassion in Lewis's face was a cold, distant kind-the kind God 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 God."

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 fucking 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 hell, 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. Hell, 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 embarrassing."

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 space 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 damn 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 crap 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."