Rachel Caine - Chill Factor

And yet, when I took a look at him in Oversight, he was just a guy. Nothing special. Not even any powers to speak of.

Quinn could tell I wasn't going to offer any color commentary. "If he'd given you the bottle, you'd have uncorked it to order Jonathan in," he said. "Only problem is, that would have let something else out , and we've got quite enough of that kind of problem going around right now. So sorry, but I had to stop you."

I felt a flush of cold through my veins. It was possible Quinn was right; Kevin's brain worked that way. If he could have found a way to screw things up, he'd have done it. And giving up… it wasn't really his style, was it? Taking out the enemy in the most horrifically violent way possible, that was his style. And if there really had been a booby-trapped bottle…

During Kevin's escape in New York three weeks ago, he and Jonathan had released from their bottles at least three Djinn who were infected with Demon Marks, which meant that they were clinically insane, at the mildest interpretation; I knew that two of them had been located and recaptured, safely labeled as hazardous materials, and stored in some underground vault in Colorado. The third remained on the loose. It figured that Kevin might have grabbed up one of the other unbroken bottles as insurance. He could have passed one of those to me, and that would have meant passing me the Demon Mark when I opened up the bottle. Yippee. Been there, done that. Really didn't care for a return engagement.

"Where are you taking me?" I asked. Useless question. He didn't even bother to glance in the rearview. There was no plastic divider between me and Quinn, and I was starting to wonder what the effects of a decent wind gust would be inside the passenger area of a Taurus, but then Quinn took an abrupt right turn, up a long, wide drive.

Toward the gleaming glass pyramid of the Luxor Hotel, guarded by the massive golden bulk of the Sphinx.

"Oh," I said. "Cool. I always wanted to stay there."

The Luxor was like the Bellagio, only different. I kind of liked the Egyptian theme better, but then I've always been pretty ostentatious in my fashion sense, and besides, in the cluster of high-end shops by the entrance I spotted evidence of Jimmy Choo, Prada, and Kate Spade. That plus all the ornamental gold and enamel… well, I almost forgot about Quinn's gun and badge and hand on my arm.

For a minute.

The gaming area was virtually identical to the Bellagio's; only the wallpaper and carpeting and uniforms were different. The money was universal, and so was the mingled, vibrating sense of euphoria and desperation. I couldn't resist; I let myself slip the leash of the material world a little and rose up into the aetheric, just enough to catch a peek.

When I was a Djinn, the aetheric had registered in patterns and wavelengths of light. These days, human senses limited me to the surfaces of things, and a kind of broad psychological interpretation of auras. On the aetheric plane, the casino was almost a photonegative of how it appeared on earth. Instead of brilliant and glittering, it was dark, shadowy, peopled by ghosts whose auras fired in flares of manic excitement or despair. I don't mean that everybody there was addicted… far from it. But there was a shine to it that reminded me unsettlingly of the way the blue sparklies had looked, up on the aetheric, when the route had been open from the Demon Realms into our own.

I wasn't sure what that meant, but I decided I didn't have time to solve the world's problems, anyway. One problem at a time, and mine was towing me through the casino at a relentless pace.

"Hey, you're not going to take me back to your presidential suite and hang me out a window, are you? Because that's so last half hour ago…"

"Quiet," Quinn said absently. He strong-armed me up to one of those areas labeled private, guarded by not one but two strong-looking guys in discreet blazers with not-so-discreet bulges under their arms. They nodded to him. He nodded back. One of them jerked a chin at me. They all gave me the once-over.

All in silence.

I gave myself the once-over, too. Clingy shirt, short skirt, high heels that were just short of being quality…

"In your dreams, guys," I said. "It's not what it looks like."

"She's with me," Quinn said.

"Watch it, Quinn," one of them warned. They were virtually identical-Buzz Cut Number One, Buzz Cut Number Two. Number Two had a slightly thicker neck. Number One had cool, chilly gray eyes. "Don't make us come in there."

Quinn fixed them each with a look, and I mean a look . Whatever he'd been using with me had been his friendly-puppy act, because that look was outright scary, promising evil and death in man-sized portions.

"Gentlemen," he said, and Buzz Cut Number One slid a key card through a slot and opened the door for us.

Beyond was a small, smoky room. In another setting it might have been labeled intimate , but in this one it was just small. Low lighting in the faux-Egyptian sconces along the wall, plush dark carpeting underfoot. A full bar at one end, with a uniformed bartender on duty.

In the center of the room, a round table, and five men sitting around it.

Playing cards.

The cards were floating in midair in front of each player; as I watched, an older gentleman who looked like he'd been made a CPA in the days of the pharaohs decided to fold, and lowered his hand facedown to the green baize surface. The room smelled of cigar smoke and sweat-soaked money. I didn't know how much the pile of chips on the table represented, but it was a lot. A lot . I didn't dare peek into the aetheric this time. Some things-I knew this instinctively- really shouldn't be seen.

"Quinn," the accountant grunted, and the rest of the players looked up. I was staring at the hand of the man directly in front of me; the floating cards showed he had eights over queens.

"Sir." Quinn's demeanor had changed again, this time to the respectful public servant. He let go of my arm. "Joanne Baldwin. Joanne, this is Myron Lazlo."

"Charmed," the accountant said, and nodded in my direction without getting up. "You're a Warden, correct?"

"Weather," I said. "You?"

He had a lived-in face, lined around the eyes. High cheekbones that made him look like he'd stored a couple of tight, small apples in them for the winter. The suit-what I could see of it-was easily a four-grand tailored job, probably from Saville Row or Rome. Beautiful gray wool. The tie was a Villa Bolgheri silk, knotted to perfection.

I revised my estimate of his total net worth up by seven figures.

"I'm not a Warden," Myron Lazlo said. "Neither are these other gentlemen, I assure you."

"So you're what, ankh guys? What's up with that?"

He gave me an unamused, unwelcoming smile. "Quinn, you're being unmannerly. Bring a chair for the lady, please."

Quinn moved without comment, came up with a straight-backed chair, and moved it into position away from the table.

"If you'd be so kind as to wait a moment," Lazlo said. "We're almost finished with this hand."

I sat down, crossed my legs, folded my hands, and waited. Quinn and his gun and his dead-eyed stare kept me honest, as did the idea of the Buzz Cut twins outside the door. Plus, whether they wanted to call themselves Wardens or not, these guys had something… defying gravity wasn't something that most people, not even my people, casually went around doing. I had the unsettling feeling this was just a parlor trick, so far as they were concerned. I spent my time trying to figure out how they did it. No Djinn in evidence. I concentrated on the air, but it was following the normal flow patterns dictated by the forces of the room-the silent current of the air-conditioning coming from the top left-hand corner, swirling into corkscrew eddies as it was drawn down by gravity toward the floor. The hotter flow was a shimmer of yellow, filtering the opposite direction. Some kind of filter system in operation, technology I didn't recognize that attracted the chemical chains of the smoke in the air and funneled it away. As smoky as this room was, I realized it could have been much worse. Five men, each puffing away on cigarettes or twenty-dollar cigars for hours on end… made me gag nicotine to think of it.