Chill Factor - Page 14/36

Myron laughed. "My dear lady, I can also see into the aetheric, you know. And while you are intemperate and occasionally unwise, you lack the necessary ruthless detachment to be able to execute young boys. Even in pursuit of the greater good. And besides that, the Djinn would stop you, you know. However, I think you actually believe you might do it, so I'll give you the benefit of the doubt and not consider it a lie." The laughter faded out of his eyes and left them chilled and scary. "You do not want to lie to me, my dear. Really, you do not."

Okay, now I had a creepy bad feeling. They knew about the Wardens. They knew about Kevin. They knew about Jonathan. Was there anything these guys didn't know?

"Your attempt to stop him is foolish," one of the others continued. He was a short, gnarly-looking little man, approaching middle age but not yet arrived: slicked-back black hair, rimless glasses, eyes of no immediate impact behind them. "The Wardens need to stay out of this. They caused this mess, just as they've caused hundreds more in the past thousand years."

"Oh, okay. We'll just pick up our toys and go home." I smiled at Gnarly Guy, saw a faint flush spark high in his cheeks. "You do know about the temperature rise, don't you? Global warming? Impending ice age? Earthquakes? You do think we should do something to stop that, right?"

Silence. They all looked at me, and then Myron Lazlo said gently, "Actually, my dear, no. We don't. And that is our difficulty. The Wardens long ago exceeded their authority when they began to enslave the Djinn and force the world to their own uses. The system has long been out of balance, which is why you have to work so hard to keep it going. What you're speaking of is simply the logical result of so many mistakes. It can't be corrected by working even harder to control it."

"Then how can it be corrected?" I asked.

"By letting go," he said. "By giving up the illusion of control and allowing the world to right itself. That is the only way we can find our balance again."

"And how many millions is that brilliant strategy going to kill?"

"As many as it takes, my dear. If the Wardens had followed the right course a thousand years ago, we'd not be facing this kind of apocalypse now, but they refused to believe. More power, they said. More power will fix what's broken. But it won't, and you know that on some level, don't you?"

Things started to fall into place. "You've been fighting us."

"No," Myron said. "We've been correcting you. We stand on the side of the Mother. On the side of balance. We are Ma'at."

I stared at them, blank. They stared back. After a long moment, Myron smiled beautifully and nodded at the bartender.

"I believe our guest might require a drink," he said. "You favor whiskey, I believe? Although I find a gin and tonic to be quite refreshing at moments like these."

I ordered something, no idea what it was even as I was saying it, because my whole attention was fixed on what was opening up before me. Another world. The answer to the difficulties the Wardens had been facing, the reason the damn world didn't cooperate.

I was looking at an enemy the Wardens didn't even know they had. And dammit, they didn't even register as Wardens. As anything at all. How the hell could they do anything against us?

Silence reigned until the uniformed bartender pressed something into hand. I sipped. Not whiskey. Something bitter and bracing, cool as limes on my tongue.

Myron said, "We are the keepers of the balance, Miss Baldwin. I trust you have some understanding of what I'm saying?"

"I don't care if you call yourself the Justice League of America, you're screwed up," I said. "Don't you realize that you're playing with lives? People are dying out there. Millions will die."

"And that is a very natural thing," put in another player. "Sentimentality should have no place in an analysis of the environment. Things die. It's the nature of the world. You acknowledge that sometimes fires must burn so that the forests may be renewed. Surely you apply the same standard to the entire world."

"So now humanity is a forest and you're going to let a fire burn us out? Kill to cure?" I gripped the sweating glass hard in my hands and strove to keep my voice steady. "I stand corrected. You're not screwed up; you're insane."

"We have a long view," Myron admitted. "To you, it might seem cruel, but I promise you, my dear, it's the best thing in the end. The more power you expend preventing the Mother from correcting the balance, the more violent the correction will be when it comes. And even the Wardens understand that you can't stop everything you identify as a disaster. Far from it."

"Yeah, thanks to you guys, I'll bet." I took another fast drink. The stuff was strong, judging by the numbed feeling in the back of my throat; I set the rest of it back down on the floor, but before it touched down another uniformed flunky was there to grab it and carry it safely back to the bar.

"It was the Wardens who forced things out of alignment thousands of years ago," Myron said. "The system began to fail the moment that they discovered they could force the Djinn to their service, instead of asking for their cooperation. Which brings us to the sorry state of affairs we find ourselves in. Djinn no longer act for us; they act against us, in constant subtle ways. The earth itself struggles to throw off the chains. And the Wardens are so oblivious, they simply tighten their grip around their own throats."

"Wow. That's poetic," I said. "So you brought me here to lecture on the evils of the Wardens?"

Myron looked amused. So did the rest of them, even Gnarly Guy, who looked like he wasn't amused by much this side of the grave. Myron passed the unbroken deck of cards to his left and nodded to the table. As if he'd given some signal, the rest of them scooted around, leaving space for another chair.

"No. We brought you here to play cards," he said. "Join us, Miss Baldwin. We could use a bit of feminine strategy in this room. Don't worry. We'll play it the normal way, out of courtesy to you."

I shot a look at Quinn, who was a statue against the wall; he had a long-distance stare that didn't seem to see me anymore. I stood up and instantly one of those suit-coated big men picked up my chair and carried it to the card table.

Myron indicated the place with an open hand. I tried another pleading look at Quinn. It was like pleading with a statue of Stalin.

I took the seat, and the new dealer-an elegantly put together little man with big Coke-bottle glasses- expertly snapped the seal on the deck, fanned the cards for inspection, shuffled, and began the deal. I was about to say that I had nothing but my shoes to bet with, but before I could draw the breath someone-I looked up and saw it was Quinn-had put a rack of chips down in front of me.

"I trust you know how to play," Myron said.

I gave him my very best innocent smile. "I went to a couple of casino nights in college." I fanned the hand I'd been dealt. It sucked, naturally. That didn't matter. I was about to teach these masters of balance something about tipping the scales in your own favor. "I'm in."

We played Texas Hold 'Em, and they cleaned my clock.

Two hours later I was sweating, broke, back down to betting my shoes, and out of the game. Quinn politely carried my chair back to its proper interrogation distance; when I looked mutinous about sitting down, he put a hand on my shoulder. Not that he pushed, exactly. Just put a hand on my shoulder, with authority.

I sat. Besides, my feet were starting to hurt, and my pride was bruised.

The old men played another three hands, silent except for raising and calling, folding and grunting in satisfaction when they won. It looked to me like Coke-bottle Glasses was winning. Nobody seemed bothered.

At some invisible signal, they just stopped playing. Myron gestured to the Luxor-uniformed factotum, who came around, counted chips, and handed over handwritten notes. Once the green baize table was clear, they passed their slips of paper around to Myron, who read each one and put them in some kind of order. Then he folded his hands on top of them.

"The vote is concluded," he said. "Mr. Ashworth holds the right of decision in this matter."

Vote? Vote? They voted by playing poker?

It hit me two seconds later what name he'd used.

Ashworth.

That could be a coincidence. There were lots of people named Ashworth.

Coke-bottle Glasses stood up to his lofty height of about five feet, straightened his nondescript but highly expensive gray suit, and took off his glasses. Without them, he had a dignified if sharp-featured face. He fixed a fierce gaze on me.

And I knew. There was a family resemblance, no question about it.

"I believe you knew my son," he said. "Charles Spenser Ashworth the third. I am Charles Spenser Ashworth the second. You may call me Mr. Ashworth."

I opened my mouth to say something, no idea what, but he stopped me with one upthrust finger and an intensely unpleasant look.

"Joanne Baldwin," he said, "I have won the right to decide what is done with you. Do you understand that?"

I managed to nod. I was too busy looking over his shoulder at Quinn, who'd come to full alert. Quinn had some features about him that reminded me of Carl, back in the desert. Adaptable to the situation, even if the situation called for death and mayhem.

I was unexpectedly nostalgic for the Bellagio hotel room, and the hair-trigger tension of Jonathan and Kevin. At least I'd been among friends.

Ashworth was talking. "... avoided telling the truth six years ago. You will not avoid it this time."

I wet my lips. "May I say something?" I got a terse, jerky nod from Ashworth. "I was cleared of charges by the Wardens."

"By the Wardens, yes." His contempt was clear. "We do not acknowledge the-how shall I put it?- impartiality of the Wardens. The venally corrupt should not be judging the guilty."

"Hey! Did we miss the part where I was not guilty!"

"I'm sorry, my dear, but you see that we may not necessarily agree with the decision," Myron said. "You were responsible for the death of one of our own. And now you must answer for it."

"To his father? Call me crazy, but what's impartial about that?"

Myron spread his hands in an elegantly helpless gesture. "You saw the game, my dear. He won the vote. In fact, you even participated. You had the opportunity to win your freedom. You failed."

These guys were insane. "I didn't know I was playing for it!"

"Would you have played more skillfully if you'd known?" He studied me for a long moment, then reached in his pocket and withdrew a white-gold cigarette case, tapped out a cancer stick, and lit up. "Continue, Charles."

"You will tell me," Ashworth said. "You will tell me how my son died. Now."

Oh, I so didn't want to do this, especially not now. "Look, this is six years old, and we have a real problem, don't you get it? That kid over at the Bellagio has the power to-"

Somebody electrocuted me.

A charge zipped up from the carpet, the metal leg of the chair, into my flesh and bones. I lost control. My body convulsed in a galvanic response, frozen by the current. Electrocution doesn't hurt, in the strictest sense of the word; there's no way to feel pain when every nerve in your body is frying into carbon.

It isn't until it stops that your brain gets the signal and you feel the pain.

The second the current cut out I pitched forward, gasping in great whoops of air, shuddering, feeling as if I'd dived into a lake of fire. Someone's hands kept me from sliding out of the chair. Not Quinn's. He was still across the room, doing an imitation of a statue. I felt a bright sting of panic inside at the thought that they might do that to me again, but I kept myself from babbling. Somehow. I just panted and shuddered and tried to keep my muscles from twitching.

Myron blew out smoke, took another leisurely drag on his cigarette, and said, "I really don't think you should concern yourself with Kevin Prentiss just now, my dear. Please attend to the matter at hand. Charles really has very little patience."

"Tell me how you killed my son." Ashworth's voice had dropped lower, gone gravelly.

I looked at him from underneath tear-matted lashes. "Trust me when I say you don't want to know."

They were going to do it again. No problem. All I had to do was control the situation... disrupt the particle chains as they formed, kill the electric charge and dissipate it, preferably through the carpeting so that it would shock the crap out of all these self-righteous little-

I thought I was prepared for it, but I wasn't. The hands on my shoulders released, and before I could get hold of the whip-fast chain of linking charges the banquet chair became ol' Sparky again, and I was riding the lightning. I wish I could say that my mind whited out but it wasn't like that. When it was over, I felt every frying nerve and misfiring cell. I couldn't hold back the tears and the sharp-edged whimpers, any more than I could stop the involuntary convulsions that continued in my back, legs, and arms. I smelled something burning. It was probably me. They held me upright in the chair.

And in my ringing ears, Charles Ashworth's calm order came like the voice of doom. "Tell me how you killed my son."

"I'm not a fucking Djinn; the Rule of Three won't work. And I'm not telling you a thing, you son of a bitch," I managed to gasp.

Quinn spoke from across the room. "Joanne, just tell the man. He really will kill you."

"It would be a shame," Lazlo said. He'd stubbed out his cigarette sometime during the last eternity, and was staring down at his clasped hands.

The others around the table looked to be in various stages of discomfort, but nobody was banging a fist and demanding for my torture to be stopped. Even the bartender was still as a ghost in the corner. The duties of the silent employees might even cover body disposal.