Rachel Caine: Chill Factor

"Yes?" he asked neutrally. "I've already made it clear, the Ma'at will not-"

"Provide transportation? Think again. We need to get to White Ridge. What've you got?"

He frowned at me for a full thirty seconds, then said, "Are you asking me for the loan of a vehicle?"

"No, Laz, I'm telling you that I'm taking a couple of cars. You pick which ones, but the faster the better." Warmth registered near my back. Lewis, Marion, Kevin, and Rahel had tagged along with me, to lend support. Lazlo's eyes skipped over them, unreadably, and focused back on me. "Time's wasting. He's your mess, in case you forgot, which means you're just as bad a judge of character as I am."

"I liked him," I said. It burned me to admit it, made parts of me flutter uneasily as memory reasserted itself. Darkness, pain, violation. I'd looked him in the eyes and I hadn't recognized him, not even the capacity for violence. I'd trusted him, like a complete brainless moron. "Cars, Laz." I snapped my fingers.

Behind me, Rahel murmured, "I believe you'll find them outside at the valet stand."

"Oh?"

Lazlo's face shut down hard. "Take what you'd like. We'll speak of this when you return. If any of you return. I don't give you very good odds. He'll know you're coming, of course. By now, he will know that his attempt to silence you failed."

I waited for him to wish me luck. He didn't.

I turned and led the way out to the lobby. It was still mostly deserted, thanks to the excitement over Bellagio way, and we walked straight out the doors, past Ma'at security, to the covered portico where uniformed valets waited. They were clustered together, nervously gossiping, but sprang into action when we approached.

"Rahel?"

She pointed to two matching Dodge Vipers. One was a deep, glistening midnight blue, flirting in the sunlight; the other was silver.

I knew the blue one. She was unmistakable.

"Mona?" I felt stupid asking it, but Marion nodded. "You had David bring it with you when you came here?"

"I thought we might need it," she said. "And he knew it would please you. I confess, I thought it would be to make a quick escape, not to go riding off to… whatever we're riding off to…"

"And the silver one?"

Rahel buffed her talons on her shirt. "It wasn't being used." She opened her palm and dropped keys into my hand. I tried to hand them back, but she stepped away with an expression of distaste. "I do not drive ."

It was, apparently, a Djinn thing; David had claimed not to, either, but he'd come around when I'd needed him to. I tossed both sets of keys in the air, thinking, and then underhanded one set to Marion. The silver car.

"Take Rahel and Kevin," I said. "Rahel, watch out for trouble." I didn't look at Kevin, but I didn't think I needed to. Her hot amber eyes glowed just a little brighter. "Marion-"

"I'll watch out for it, too." Neither one of us trusted Rahel completely either; I could see the acknowledgment of it in her serene face. I wouldn't have trusted anyone but Marion to shepherd those two. "How fast are we driving?"

I stepped out from the thick shade into the molasses-thick glare of the Las Vegas sun and walked to the driver's side of the blue Viper. It was too hot to put my hand on the blue finish, but I held it a couple of inches above the blazing metal. Petting her was almost irresistible.

"What?" I asked absently. Marion, unlocking the silver Viper, repeated the question. I looked across the car at Lewis, who had opened the passenger side.

I laughed, and said, "Just try to keep up." It sounded hollow, felt worse. I should have felt free, opening the driver's-side door and easing into Mona's comfortable seat, feeling the potential of her ignite at the turn of the key. Cars had always made me feel safe. Powerful.

But I was driving this one into the past, and that was one place I didn't want to go.

What surprised me was that I hadn't recognized his voice. Not recognizing his body or face, sure, that was understandable; the only clear look I'd ever had at Orry was that morning in the desert, and it had been fifteen seconds long, at a distance, with a baseball cap shadowing his face and panic jittering my focus.

But the voice. I should have recognized the voice.

When the shadow in the dark grabbed me in the caves and held me underwater, I'd honestly thought that I was dead. Coming awake again in the darkness, I still thought I was dead; combine the trauma with the heat exhaustion and dehydration, not to mention the head injury, and dead was what I probably should have been.

Instead, I opened my eyes in the dark and for a few seconds there was nothing, nothing but the drip of water and the sound of my own heart slowly, steadily working its way toward death, one beat at a time.

I licked dry lips-even though there was water beaded on them, they felt dry and painfully cracked- and whimpered as pain stabbed through my head. I tried to pull in a deep breath, but it gurgled in my lungs, and I coughed.

Coughing with a head injury, not recommended. My head exploded in pulsations of white agony, and I couldn't stop hacking. By the time I stopped I was huddled in a sitting position, my back against what felt like wood. It creaked when I moved against it. My chest was on fire, but that was nothing compared to the complete devastation of my headache. I carefully leaned my skull back against the wooden boxes, in the hope that not moving it anymore would help the nauseating throbbing to settle down. I had both hands clutching my temples, but that didn't seem to be helping-it felt like it was holding the pain inside-so I let them fall back into my lap. The air tasted damp and cool. Not a breath of wind.

I heard the scrape of footsteps. My first thought was to call for help, but my second was a memory of being held underwater, and I kept still. I stared into the dark-which was complete-and saw nothing. Not a flicker of light. Maybe I'm blind . That was a freak-inducing thought that I tried to put well behind me.

The sound of someone coming got louder. Pebbles rattled. He must have misstepped once; I heard someone curse softly-male voice-and there was some scuffling that sounded like things being rearranged. Metal, maybe, dragged over rock. Tough to say.

I was still trying to figure out which direction the footsteps were coming from when he flicked on a flashlight, and I was hit squarely but a rush of light so bright it felt like he'd set my eyeballs on fire. I screamed and covered my eyes, turned my face away, but even then I could see the halogen flare, burning bright red on my eyelids.

He'd meant to do that, just in case. He wanted me blind and disoriented.

I felt something grab my foot and drag me suddenly forward; I was able to save my head from smacking into the rock, which might very well have killed me, and then there was a weight astride me, a belt buckle digging painfully into my stomach as he leaned forward. The light was still in my face. I couldn't see him at all.

"Open your eyes," he said. I couldn't have, even if I'd wanted to; I was already crying from the blaze of light. I tried to bat the flashlight away, and he grabbed both my hands in one of his and slammed them back to the stone. The light loomed closer, bloodred on the other side of my eyelids, like a giant blazing eye. "Open your eyes!"

I tried. I think I must have managed to get them open just a little, because I heard him say, "Blue. Huh. I'd have bet they were brown."

He didn't sound crazy. In fact, he sounded very normal, as if we were standing at a cocktail party with our little drinks, making small talk. As if he hadn't just tried to drown me and killed another woman and was kneeling on my chest with a light in my eyes.

"What's your name, sweetheart?" he asked. I could almost see him smiling, saluting me with a martini.