Chill Factor - Page 17/36

"You stupid bastard," I whispered. "God, I'm so sorry."

I checked, cringing at the contact of my fingers on his raw flesh. He wasn't breathing, and there was no pulse. After a long, weary pause, I got up and limped back to the wind-scoured road, light-headed, wounded, sand-burned.

Still alive, despite everything.

Stranded under the hot glare of the sun.

I didn't tell them the rest. I ended it with Chaz's death; there was more, but it was none of their damn business. When I was finished, there was silence in the poker room. Lots of it, flowing deep and cold. Most of the card players were staring down, up, away from me.

All except for Quinn, whose eyes were fixed on me in concentration so intense it was almost sexual, and Charles Ashworth, who looked drained. Tired. Old.

"Thank you," he finally said, and turned back to the table. His voice sounded rusty and ancient. "I have no further need for her. You may do as you like."

That had a bad ring to it. I shifted slightly in the chair. Nobody was holding me down, and I was mostly recovered from the last shock; despite the presence of Quinn and the big, burly guys outside, I was giving myself pretty good odds on getting out alive if I had to fight.

"Don't be alarmed," Myron Lazlo said, in that warm, gentle voice. "We don't mean you harm, Miss Baldwin."

I muttered something under my breath about "could have fooled me." Quinn heard. I saw the answering dark sparkle in his eyes.

"Yeah, about that, what exactly do you mean, Myron?" I asked. I didn't sound particularly obsequious about it. "What the hell do you want with me?"

Myron smiled. It was unsettling, because it looked kindly and grandfatherly and yet there was a kind of entitlement about it that made my spine try to crawl away.

"We want you to join us," he said. "We want you to report back to the Wardens and tell them all is well, the problem has been solved."

"Solved?"

"That Jonathan escaped, Kevin died. We do not want you to report anything about our meeting, or the existence of the Ma'at. From time to time, we will have assignments for you that will require you to act on our behalf. That is the price of your freedom."

I swallowed, wished I had a nice cold glass of water, and said, "Two problems. First, I don't take orders from you. Second, no matter what I say when I get back, they won't just believe me that our Kevin and Jonathan problem's miraculously solved itself."

The Ma'at, or at least as much of them as were gathered around a high-stakes table, looked at each other and smiled. Damn, they all looked smug. It must have been a requirement.

"My dear, we wouldn't expect they would," Myron assured me. "I promise you, Kevin will be dead. Quite thoroughly dead, before the end of the day. As for Jonathan... well, I expect you'll just have to be convincing."

One of the others said, "She won't betray the Wardens. She's as solid as a rock. About as thick as one, too."

"Rocks are easy," Ashworth put in. He brushed imaginary lint from his suit. "All you need is a large enough jackhammer."

Boy, I wasn't going to like him any more than I had his son.

"You don't have to decide now." Myron reclaimed the conversation, leaned forward and looked presidential. "Joanne-may I call you Joanne?-you're not stupid. Surely you know that the Wardens are riddled with corruption, that the situation you faced with Chaz"-his eyes flicked to Ashworth, exchanging a silent message that contained a swift apology-"was hardly unusual. I understand that you also encountered one of the worst offenders in Florida."

"Bad Bob," I said, and immediately wished I hadn't blurted it out. I got a slow nod from all the heads at the table.

"Dangerous," Myron said. "You did the world a great favor by removing his influence."

"I didn't do it for the world." I did it to save my ass.

"Regardless of why you did it, the results were good. Surely Bad Bob confessed to you that he didn't act alone, that there were other Wardens engaged in illegal activities. You must be aware that it runs rampant throughout the organization. You'd have to be foolish not to have concluded that to be the case. That's part of why we were formed, and why we continue to exist. Because the Wardens have become a force for evil, not good. And they need countering."

I didn't like thinking about Bad Bob, what he'd said, what he'd done to me. I had a sudden cell-deep vision of his weathered face, his sharp blue eyes, his hands pouring a demon down my throat. I felt a sudden dry constriction in my chest, a desperate need to get out of here, away from these men who were starting to strongly remind me of that whole experience.

I stood up. Nobody panicked, not even me. Quinn stayed where he was, shoulders against the wall, arms folded. I walked over to the bar, looked the uniformed attendant in the eye, and ordered a springwater. He handed it over silently. I broke the seal and chugged it, tasting desert and fear and confusion. Handed the empty bottle back.

And then I turned back to Myron and said, "The Wardens aren't perfect. What makes you think you're any better?"

He just smiled. Wrong tactic. These guys weren't going to feel anything less than omnipotent, no matter what I said.

I tried again. "You can't kill Kevin."

"Why not?"

"He's just a kid."

Myron studied me curiously. "Yet you've contemplated killing him yourself."

"I want to take away his powers, but I don't think that means he has to die. Jeez, you guys are so damn smart, you can't come up with a way to neutralize him?"

"The Wardens failed to," said one of the poker players.

"The Wardens were shut out. You were on the inside." I paced the room, letting them get used to the idea of me moving. It wouldn't work with Quinn, of course; the cop was watching me with tolerant, amused eyes, but underneath that was a cold core of absolute competence. I needed Quinn on my side, or gone. What was his story, anyway? A cop, working for the anti-Wardens? There was a story there... and no time for me to learn it.

"Okay, assuming that I'm considering your proposition to work for you... what are you offering?" I clasped my hands behind my back so they wouldn't see how badly they were shaking. The carpet felt soft and springy under my feet. I put a little more swing into my hips, a little more freedom in my walk. Being the only woman in the room had an advantage, especially among older men. "Money? Power? What?"

"We're offering you the chance to do what you've always wanted to do," Myron said. "We're offering you the chance to do good."

I smiled thinly. "Oh, my. And if I don't want to take your generous offer?"

Quinn didn't move, but he suddenly got a whole lot bigger. Nothing supernatural about it; it was a body-language trick, a cooling of the expression, the warmth draining out of his stare.

"We'd have to resort to regrettable alternatives," Myron said. His eyes didn't move to indicate Quinn, but I got the point. "I'm sure you're aware that at least one Warden has already met his death here-we did not cause it, but neither did we act to prevent it. Jonathan and Kevin would do a very nice job of eliminating you, if we provided them with reason to do so. But really, my dear, there's no need for any animosity. The Ma'at are dedicated to exactly the same principles that you honor. The Wardens are no longer the saviors of humanity; they're parasites, perpetuating a cycle of violence and destruction, enslaving beings who ought by rights to be free. You can't want to be part of that."

I inched up into Oversight as I paced the room. It glittered in strings and strands of power, a treacherous spiderweb. Just now, they weren't trying to control me, but the minute I started reaching for power, they'd shut me down. Physical attack was out; I was outnumbered and outgunned at every turn.

"Miss Baldwin? I'm afraid that I require an answer."

I was about to give him an unladylike one, but then there was a discreet knock at the door and it swung open. A woman looked in-businesslike, professionally coiffed, beautifully dressed-and gave them some kind of high sign. Shut the door gently as she left.

"Ah," Myron said. He sounded ever-so-slightly disgruntled. "It appears we'll have to delay this, Miss Baldwin. Our four-o'clock is here. Mr. Quinn? Please show our guest to her room."

Quinn pushed away from the wall, walked to me, and took my arm. It looked gentlemanly, and it felt authoritarian. He steered me across the soft carpet to the door, opened it, and squired me out without another word.

I glanced back.

They were opening another deck of cards. I wasn't even a topic of conversation.

Quinn took me out past the guards. If the old men of Ma'at had a four-o'clock, he or she wasn't cooling their heels outside; all I could see was the normal business of the casino. I considered screaming rape or fire or cardsharp, but considering that the security all seemed to know Quinn-he exchanged friendly nods with each uniform we passed-I decided to wait for a better opportunity. Maybe Kevin would come to my rescue. That would be ironic.

The Luxor was full of things I wanted to see- beautifully reproduced Egyptian statues, the faux treasures of Tut, souvenir shops that held the glitter of gold and silver and gems-but Quinn didn't even slow down.

"Hey," I said as he hustled me past a storefront full of reproduction Egyptian furniture, "you know what all villains have in common? They don't shop. They're too busy being evil to shop. You guys need to learn the fine art of browsing."

Quinn laughed softly and put his arm around my shoulders. No sexual intent-it only meant he could steer me more effectively. He smelled woodsy, a mixture of some sharp green aftershave and a dark hint of male sweat. Maybe some gun oil, too. No tobacco. He wasn't a smoker.

"Sweetheart," he said, "you are one lovely piece of work. I gotta tell you, I've seen rich men with power over major corporations break down and cry over less than you just survived. You gave as good as you got."

"If I gave as good as I got, did good old Chuck get electrocuted? I was too busy convulsing to see."

He patted my shoulder. From some men, all of this physical contact would have been prurient, but Quinn seemed to not have any ulterior motives, not even the obvious. He was just friendly.

We arrived at a huge bank of closed steel doors. One opened, and Quinn steered me in.

Oh. Glass. I blinked and looked out at the bright glare of a Las Vegas afternoon, which was nowhere near as gaudy as a Las Vegas evening. There was something vaguely weird about this elevator, which became clear when Quinn pushed buttons and it began to rise.

It didn't go up. Well, not directly. It went at an angle.

"It's an inclinator, not an elevator," Quinn said. "Like the view?"

I had to admit, it was pretty. Our elevator- inclinator-crawled up the slope of the huge glass pyramid, each floor announcing itself with a muted whispered ding, and the world fell away. I amused myself by identifying hotels along the strip. Paris. New York, New York, with its roller coaster and the half-scale Statue of Liberty. The white lace of the Bellagio's fountains shooting skyward in a silent, choreographed dance.

We stopped somewhere near the top.

Quinn tugged me out, walked me down the hall, and opened up a room with the standard electronic card key.

"Well," I said, startled. "This'll do."

My room had an entire wall of windows, sharply angled, and sunlight sparked from the muted gold of faux-Egyptian furniture. The bed looked sumptuous.

Through the bathroom door, I saw a huge Jacuzzi tub facing the windows. "I'll give your side this: You know how to imprison a girl in style."

"You're not a prisoner," Quinn said, and handed me the key. "And we're not necessarily on the opposite side, either. Listen, feel free to go downstairs, hit the casinos, the spa, the pool... just don't try to leave the building."

I took the cool, smooth plastic. "If I do?" Quinn raised a silent eyebrow. "Right. You know I can't just hang around here, waiting for the Geezer Patrol to decide what to do with me. There's a time limit. Jonathan and Kevin are going to come after me, and believe me, I don't think anybody wants that. It'll be one hell of a show."

"You don't need to worry about the boy."

"The fact that you can say that just proves to me that you don't know dick about that boy."

Quinn reached under his coat. No change in expression. I remembered the gun, felt myself tense, wondered if it was even possible to stop a bullet with the powers I possessed...

... and he came out with another card, this one a different color of plastic.

"Have fun," he said, and handed it over. "That's worth five thousand in chips. Go crazy. I've got to get back to work."

"Quinn!" I caught his arm when he turned to go. "I can't just stay here!"

He patted my hand, removed it, and walked to the door. "If you don't," he said pleasantly as he opened it, "I'll just have to break your ankles. That'd keep you from wandering."

He shut the door with a quiet click. I chewed my lip, counted to thirty, then went to look out.

He was gone. When I raced to the window, I saw the inclinator crawling back down the face of the pyramid, and Quinn was facing out toward the view. He didn't look in my direction.

I went to the telephone, got a dial tone, and called a number from memory. Long distance, but I wasn't particularly worried about the charges at the moment. Let the Ma'at pay for it, the crusty old Republicans.

Three rings. Four.

"Bearheart," a low female voice said. I let out a gasp; I hadn't realized I'd been holding my breath.