Thin Air

TEN

Eamon was thinking about murder, in an abstract kind of way. He had no real objection to killing, but he did dislike complications, and he was, at that moment, royally pissed about just how complicated a perfectly simple scheme had become.

“All you had to do was pay her off,” he said, staring at his business associate. Thomas Orenthal Quinn-Orry to his less than savory friends-shrugged. They were sitting at a café near the Las Vegas Strip, surrounded by noise and color, an island of calm in a sea of frantic activity. Eamon was sipping tea. Whatever Orry was drinking, it wasn’t quite that English.

“Look at it this way,” Orry said, and stirred the thick, dark drink in front of him. “She was badass enough to kill poor old Chaz. You should’ve seen what was left of him; Christ, it was disgusting. I couldn’t take the chance she might come back for more. Dead is simple, right?”

“Generally,” Eamon agreed. “Dead Wardens, not so simple. They’ll investigate. I don’t want them finding any link to you, forensically or otherwise.” He glanced around-habit-although he was certain nobody was within earshot. Amazing what people would ignore. “You’re sure she’s out of the picture?”

“I’m sure.” Orry gave him a tight, unpleasant smile. He was a nondescript man, and few who met him seemed to understand what lay underneath that unremarkable exterior. Eamon knew, and respected it. He might have been insane, but he was definitely not insane enough to cross Thomas Quinn without cause. “Unless she can breathe underwater, she’s not bothering us again.”

“You need to be sure.”

Orry shrugged. “Let’s go. I’ll show you.”

I felt that slippery fast-forward sensation, and fought to hold on to the memory. Eamon’s filthy, cold mind made me shiver, but at the same time it was real, it was life, and I wanted more.

Even though I felt a sick sensation of dread at what he was heading toward on this particular trip down memory lane.

I watched as Eamon and Orry drove into the desert, taking unfamiliar roads deeper into the wilderness. When Orry finally pulled the car off the road, Eamon was bored, thirsty, and regretting the idea, but he followed Orry up the hill and into the darkness of a cave.

It stank, but it wasn’t the stink of decomposition. Orry switched on a flashlight and led him through a series of narrow passages. Boxes stacked against the wall-Product, Eamon thought, and made a mental note to move it when this was done. It was a filthy place to store anything. He heard a cold chatter of bats overhead, and thought again about murder. Orry, dead, would solve so many of his issues.

“Fuck,” Orry said tonelessly. His flashlight played over a milky pool of water, its surface placid and undisturbed. “She was right here. Right here.”

Eamon hated being right. “And you were certain she was dead.”

“Yeah. Christ, I strangled her before I drowned her. What is she, a goddamn superhero?”

If she was, Eamon thought, they were in for a great deal of trouble. “Anything else?”

“Such as?” Orry was poker-faced, but Eamon knew his weaknesses too well.

“Have a little fun before you did her in? Or tried?”

Orry didn’t answer, which was answer enough. Perfect, Eamon thought in disgust. Probably DNA evidence as well. “Did she see you? See your face?”

“No.”

“You’re certain.”

“Yes, dammit, I’m sure. She can’t identify me.”

“Even if that’s so, we have very little time,” Eamon said. “We need to clear everything out and clean up as much of the forensic evidence as possible, in case she’s able to lead them back here.”

“Eamon…” Orry turned toward him, looking at him oddly. It took Eamon a second to realize that it was an expression of apology. “I really thought she was dead.”

Murder would be such an easy answer. But in all his travels, Eamon had met only two other people in the world who could match him for ferocity and ruthlessness, and it would be a shame to lose a partner over something so essentially trivial. If she couldn’t identify him, they could simply avoid the entire issue.

Still. Killing Orry sounded very tempting, and for an unblinking moment Eamon imagined how he’d do it. The knife concealed in his jacket, most likely, driven up under the ribs and twisted. Fast, relatively painless, not a huge amount of blood. Or he could snap his neck, though Orry was a wiry bastard and, as a cop, fully trained to prevent harm to himself.

No, the knife was better, far better.

“You going to stare at me or move the fucking boxes?” Orry snapped. “I got things to do.”

Eamon smiled slightly. “By all means,” he said. “Let’s move boxes. It’s easier than moving bodies.”

Blur. This time we jumped years.

Eamon, in a car, parked outside of an apartment building. Watching someone with field glasses. As with Cherise, I could feel what he was feeling. Unlike Cherise, what Eamon was feeling was completely alien to me.

I didn’t know people could feel that way. Dark, cold, detached. Mildly annoyed at the inconveniences.

He was thinking about ways to hurt the woman he was watching. I didn’t want to see any of that, but Venna wasn’t discriminating; if it was in Eamon’s head, it spread into mine like a sick, fatal virus.

Eamon was not a normal man. Not at all.

The woman he was watching, visible through the open sliding door of her apartment balcony, turned, sipping a glass of wine. Red wine.

It was me.

Pretty enough, he was thinking. She’d do, for a while. He liked fair skin. Fair skin showed bruises better.

It took me a breathless moment to realize that however sick I might feel about what he was thinking, Eamon didn’t plan to carry out any of his fantasies. They were just entertainment for him, a cold way to amuse himself during a boring job.

“You’re sure she’s the one,” he said, and I realized there was someone sitting in the passenger seat of the car next to him. A matronly woman, middle-aged, with a nice face and quick, friendly smile. “She’s the one who killed Quinn in Las Vegas.”

The woman shrugged. “That’s what they say. Doesn’t look too likely to me; just look at her. Not exactly Quinn’s level, is she?”

“Looks can be deceptive,” Eamon said, and lowered the glasses. “You’re sure Quinn’s dead.”

“As sure as I can be,” the woman said. “Cops found his SUV blown all to hell out in the middle of nowhere, no sign of Quinn’s body, but they found a lot of blood. Too much for him to have survived. They figure coyotes scavenged his corpse, or else the flood got it. There was a storm around that time, a real gully-washer. Could have carried his body for miles if he fell into the arroyo. Anyway, he’s dead for sure if he didn’t contact me by now. I’m holding some stuff for him.”

“Anything good?” Eamon asked, and looked through the field glasses again. Not-me looked polished and glossy, tanned and toned. Contemplative, as she gazed out over the horizon. She had an ocean view, apparently. Nice.

“A package from our friend Mr. Velez. Nothing too unusual this time. I was thinking of moving it through the East Coast channels, unless you had a better idea.”

“No, Cynthia, that’s fine. You do as you think best.” Eamon stretched, sighed, and put the glasses down. “She’s one of them, though. You’re certain.”

“She’s one of them,” the unknown Cynthia said. “I’d stake my life on it.”

Eamon started the car. “You are staking your life on it, love.”

Joanne Baldwin was, Eamon knew, the one Quinn had failed to kill all those years ago in the cave. How very interesting that it would come to this.

Blood would tell.

Blur.

Eamon with my sister. Eamon gaining my trust and betraying it in the most shocking way. I couldn’t possibly have hated anyone more after I saw what he was up to, but the betrayals just kept on coming.

Mine, as well as his.

Eamon trading me Sarah for what he supposed was a Djinn bottle-which it was, just a booby-trapped one that let loose an insane Djinn who couldn’t be controlled. Eamon fighting his way through a terrifying hurricane to cut me and Sarah loose from a tree, where the wind and debris would have killed us in a matter of minutes.

Eamon running away with my sister. And Sarah wanted to go.

Eamon coming back to me afterward, threatening Sarah again, but realizing that he’d lost his leverage. Not giving up, though. He was nothing if not persistent.

Imara was in the memories, too. Helping me. Guarding me. Terrified for me, as Eamon calculated how far he could push me-and her-to get what he wanted.

And David. That memory was crystal clear in Eamon’s mind. David had come out of nowhere, nowhere, picked up a fallen knife, and-The second you disappoint me, little man, the instant I think that you’re mocking me or even thinking about harm to my family, that ends. I watch you bleed your life away in less than a dozen heartbeats.

We’d left him, the three of us-mother, father, child. We’d been a family once. And David had loved us both with such intensity that it burned through to even a self-absorbed predator like Eamon.

Eamon respected him. And he liked me-in the same way he’d once liked Thomas Orenthal Quinn.

That turned my stomach.

What was worse, far worse, was that even as sick and horrifying as Eamon was, as far from human as I thought he was, when I looked at him with that dizzying rush of power, when his body dissolved into multilayered lights and networks of flowing energy, he was beautiful. Unique and beautiful and impossible not to somehow love for his damage and his brilliance and his fierce, unflinching intelligence…

I couldn’t help but go back for more. So many memories, every color, every flavor filling my empty spaces. His memories weren’t like Marion’s; hers had been astringent, like dry white wine. Eamon’s were red, bloodred, thick and salty and choking in their intensity. Horrors and wonders. Things that even in that state I tried not to see.

Venna yanked me out with her hand on the back of my neck, and her eyes were wide and very strange. The world lurched around me, tilted, and Eamon slid bonelessly off of the wall to collapse in a heap. Sarah cried out and knelt beside him.

“Oh,” Venna whispered. She didn’t spare any attention for Eamon, but she stared holes through me. “I didn’t know you could do that. You shouldn’t have, you know.”

When Venna let me go I staggered off, fighting nausea, not fighting tears. I needed a shower, a wire scrub brush, and bleach to feel clean again. Oh, God.

I found myself sitting limply in the sand, tinted with flashing red and blue lights. Shaking.

“Jo?” It was Sarah, looking so much older and harder than in the memories. He’d had her for only a few months, right? And already she was destroying herself. “Eamon passed out. I think he’s sick, but he’s breathing, would you please-”

I reached out to her and grabbed hold and hugged her. Hard. I dragged her down to a kneeling position. “I had a daughter,” I said. My voice didn’t sound at all right. “I had a daughter and she’s gone, Sarah, she’s gone…” More than anything else in Eamon’s memories, seeing Imara had hurt me. A sound welled up out of me, a helpless tearing sound, and I couldn’t stop shaking. Sarah held on somehow. My sister. Selfish, shallow, willfully deluded…but deep inside, still my sister.

“Oh, Jo,” she said, and kissed my hair. “I’m sorry. You mean Imara? Something happened to Imara?”

“Something…” I didn’t even know the details. I hoped I wouldn’t. “She’s gone.”

Sarah hugged me again, harder. “I’m so sorry. She wasn’t…well, she wasn’t human, but she was sweet. Like the best parts of you. She…she tried to keep me safe, like you told her, but I wasn’t…I didn’t want to be safe. I sent her away.” I felt her hitch a damp, unsteady breath. “Oh, God. Was it because I did that? Did she get hurt because of that?”

“I…don’t know,” I said slowly. God. That couldn’t be true, could it? That somehow my own sister had been a part of…No. I couldn’t think that way.

“Sarah,” I said, and pulled back to stare into her eyes. “You need to listen to me. Just this once. Promise?”

She nodded. I took in a deep breath.

“Eamon will hurt you,” I said. “He’s toxic. Maybe he doesn’t mean to hurt you, I don’t know, but he won’t be able to help it. It’s what he does. He can’t do anything else. You need to walk away from him, and stay away. Get clean. Find out who you are without him or me or anyone else.”

She tried to pull away, but I held her where she was. “Sarah,” I said. “I’m not kidding. You have to leave.”

Her eyes filled up with tears. “I know,” she said. “I know all that’s true. But I love him.”

“He used you to get me to do this,” I said, and nodded at the wrecked building. “Nobody got hurt this time. What happens next time? What happens when he has cash sunk into some hotel or resort or something, and he wants a nice big tsunami to wash it away? How many people do you think he’ll kill who stand between him and a payday? You say you love him, Sarah, but do you love him that much?”

The tears spilled over.

“I want you to go,” I said. “Get in the car and go. It doesn’t matter where, just away, and don’t call him. Don’t contact him. Do you have any money?”

She nodded numbly. There were more tears where the first ones came from. “There’s a suitcase in the trunk,” she said. “It has cash in it. He doesn’t think I know about it.”

I’d expected that. Eamon wouldn’t go anywhere without an emergency flight kit. He was too good a criminal. “Are there drugs in it?” She didn’t answer, which was as good as a yes. “Sarah, I want you to promise me that you’ll stop. Take the drugs and pills and flush them. Will you?” I played the only card I had, the guilt card. “For Imara, if you won’t do it for yourself?”

She just stared at me, face gone blank and lifeless with fear and uncertainty. And then she said, “He’ll come after me. Jo, I can’t say no to him. I just can’t.”

“You’ll have to learn.”

“But-”

“Just go.”

Venna turned and watched my sister staggering away. She put her hands primly behind her back and rocked back and forth. “Do you still want her memories?” she asked.

“No.” An image of something from Eamon’s filthy, diseased brain rose up in my head, and I almost gagged. I didn’t want to live that nightmare from my sister’s point of view, too. “You were right. I’ve seen enough for now.”

Venna shrugged and turned toward Eamon, who was stirring where he sat slumped against the rock wall. He didn’t look like a monster. He looked like a nice enough man, attractive if you went in for the lean and hungry look with a bit of scruff thrown in. He’d taken in my sister. He’d even taken me in, for a while, until he wanted me to know his real self.

He was waking up, and I didn’t know if I could face him again.

“Venna,” I said in a normal tone of voice, and set my feet in the sand. “Does he have the keys to the car?”

“Yes.”

“Can you get them?”

She extended her hand, and a set of keys appeared in her tiny palm.

“Can you give them to Sarah?”

She didn’t even have to move to do it, just shrugged and the keys faded out and disappeared. A few seconds later I heard the black car start up with a rumble.

I didn’t turn to watch. I didn’t take my eyes off of Eamon as he moaned, clutched his head, and staggered to his feet. He looked quite mad. His eyes were fiercely bloodshot, and there were trickles of blood coming from his nostrils. I’d done that to him.

The sound of the car faded into the distance before he managed to straighten up. Sarah was gone.

Now it was just the three of us.

Well, two of us, because without warning Venna skipped away, kicking at the sand in her patent-leather shoes, just like a regular kid. I wasn’t dumb enough to think it made any difference in the amount of concentration she had on the situation.

Eamon sniffed, wiped at the blood on his face, and glared at me. “What the hell did you do to me?” he growled.

“You’ll be all right.” I had no idea if he would or not, actually, but right at the moment if his brain exploded like a pumpkin in a microwave, I couldn’t really care. “Don’t.”

He took a couple of steps in my direction. His body language was attack-dog stiff.

“Stop.”

“Where’s Sarah?” he spit at me, all Cockney edges and sharp angles, and I held out my hand toward him, palm out.

A wall of wind hit him and shoved him back, hard. Knocked him on his ass.

He got up and lunged. I knocked him back again, and this time he took out a knife.

“Oh, come on, Eamon, look around!” I said, and jerked my head at the police cars, the firefighters, the onlookers all still staring at the wrecked building. The news crews. “You really want to do this? Here?”

“Where is she?” he yelled, and paced from side to side. His eyes were almost crimson from the burst blood vessels, and the expression in them was just one breath away from complete insanity. He held the knife concealed at his side, but he was clearly on the verge of violence. “You stupid, interfering bitch. Do you think you’re saving her? She’ll kill herself! She’s already tried! I’m trying to save her!”

“You’re the reason she’s dying inside,” I said. “And damned if I’m going to let you do that to her. Sarah’s strong. She’ll be fine.”

“She won’t! For Christ’s sake, woman, who do you think your sister is, exactly? She’s not some helpless, stupid waif! Her ex-husband didn’t get wealthy by keeping his hands clean, and she was neck-deep in it, too. Taking up with me wasn’t a sign of her weakness; it was a sign she recognized an opportunity, that’s all. You think I don’t know that’s wrong? I know what I am!” I didn’t want to buy it, but there was an undeniable desperation to what he was saying. “I did this for her!”

I blinked. “What?” I hadn’t gotten that far in his memories before Venna had yanked me out. Eamon made a raw sound of frustration.

“The building, you twit! Sarah owns it! She’ll be making a fortune from the insurance. This was her idea, you bloody fool.”

I didn’t believe him. I couldn’t. Not…not that. “You’re a lying, crazy bastard.”

“No, I’m a fool. So are you. She used you.”

“You’re a liar. Sarah had nothing to do with any of it.” I was shaking, I was so angry. “I told her to go ahead and spend your suitcase full of money. That’s for being an asshole, Eamon.”

Something flashed in his expression, and I braced myself. “Just one problem, love,” he said. “I don’t have a suitcase of money. Sarah does, and she got it by selling you far, far down the river. She’s driving off with cash and a car, and leaving the two of us to finish each other. Not bad for a helpless little drug-addled waif, eh?”

I felt stunned, and a little sick. The hit man, I thought. The hit man who’d been waiting outside the jail. Was that possible? Would she really sell my life like that? For money?

Eamon took another step toward me, and I snapped my attention back to the present. “Put down the knife, Eamon.”

He looked at it, turning it in his long, sensitive fingers like he’d never seen it before. “Ah,” he said. “But that would mean I wouldn’t have any fun at all. And I’d so hate to disappoint dear Sarah by not living down to her expectations. She does need to understand that there are limits to my patience, and you’re just the way to show her.”

And he lunged for me, knife out.

I blew him backward, and I didn’t even know how I’d done it, except that I’d reached for something, and something had responded.

I didn’t blow him far, and he snarled, and he came back for me, and I knew if he came within slashing distance my ass was dead.

So I made the sand melt under his feet, like the Wardens had done to me when they’d been trying to trap me, and Eamon plunged without a sound below the surface.

Venna, who’d been ignoring me through all this, whirled around, lips parted, eyes blazing. “Look at you,” she said. “Look at you. So pretty. So bright. So strange.”

I had no idea what she was talking about, because I was trying to figure out what I’d done. I’d meant to trap Eamon’s legs, the way I’d been restrained, but instead…Where the hell was he? “Eamon?” I asked, and took a step forward. “Eamon, are you all right?”

The sand eroded under my feet. I yelped and jumped back.

Whatever I’d done, it was still spreading.

The sand sagged where I was standing, and I continued a slow, uncertain retreat. “Um…Venna? What’s happening?”

She was still staring at me, with a light in her eyes that was creepily close to rapture. “It’s you,” she said. “You’re happening.”

“Not helpful!” I tried to figure out how to make sand sticky again. That seemed to be not quite as instinctual as making it slippery and talcum powdery. “How do I stop this?”

“Let him die,” she said. “It’s the best thing, really.”

And she skipped away.

What the hell…?

I had bigger issues: Namely, I was killing a guy, probably, and whatever chain reaction I’d set in motion looked likely to collapse the entire beach, the cliff, maybe the whole California coastline before I could get it under control. And I had no idea what I was doing.

But somebody did.

I circled around the spreading pit of quicksand and vaulted over the low rocks. Jamie Rae and Stan, my friendly neighborhood Warden cops, were stretched out on the sand, carefully arranged to look like they were napping. Jamie Rae murmured something in her sleep and burrowed closer to Stan. Cozy.

“Hey!” I said, and grabbed Stan’s arm, hauling him up. His eyes tried to open, then fluttered shut. He wasn’t quite deadweight, but damn close. “Stan, wake up. Wake up! Warden emergency! Yo!”

I slapped him. That made his eyelids flutter some more, and when I went to hit him again he clumsily parried. My third attempt was met with a fairly precise interception, and Stan finally focused on me.

“You,” he mumbled. He sounded drugged and loopy. Great. Just what I didn’t need. “Thought you were going to kill us. Dangerous.”

“Yeah, well, you’re right about the dangerous part,” I said. “Hurry.”

I dragged him to his feet, leaving Jamie Rae to whimper in dreamy frustration at the loss of his warm, solid body, and pulled him around the rocks. It had been less than a minute, but the sinkhole was growing. Fast. It was already at least ten feet in diameter, and as I watched, part of the rock wall sagged with a groaning sound.

“Oh, crap,” Stan said. “What did you do?”

“Hell if I know. Do something!”

He tried. I could feel the surges of energy radiating out of him, plunging deep into the earth. Trying to reinforce the erosion. Trying to stop what was spreading like some virulent plague through the beach.

“There’s a guy in there!” I said, and pointed at the center of the depression. “Can you get him out?”

Stan cast me a wordless look of horror.

“Please?” I asked, because even if it was Eamon, there was something far too horrible about choking to death in a pit of talcum powder. Maybe he deserved it. No, I’d been in his head-I knew he deserved it-but I didn’t want to be the one dispensing justice.

“I’ll need your help,” he said. “Just relax. I’ll show you.” He put a hand on the back of my neck, and through the connection I felt something warm moving through my body. I remembered what it had felt like when Lewis had healed me-not too different. I held still for it, tried to relax as instructed, and concentrated all my energy on the idea of saving Eamon’s life.

The pit of sand rolled, as if a miniature fault line had shifted beneath it, and began to fill in, or rise up-it was hard to identify what was happening. But it was happening quietly. Nobody on the beach, not even the news crews, had paid any attention to us so far.

That changed when Eamon emerged from the sand, a limp body lying curled in on himself and flour white with fine dust. His eyes were tightly shut.

He wasn’t breathing.

I exchanged a quick glance with Stan; he let go of me and nodded, as if he understood what I intended to do. I stepped out onto the treacherous sand. It shifted-more than it should have-more like tiny balls of slick ice than gritty grains. I fought for balance, windmilling my arms like a tightrope walker, and slowly moved forward. My shoes kept sinking-not enough to stop me, but enough to make me sweat. Stan hadn’t fixed things so much as temporarily stopped their disintegration, and I wasn’t at all sure how long he could hold on. A look over my shoulder told me that he was sweating bullets and trembling-not exactly a vote of confidence. “Hurry?” he not quite begged. I took a deep breath and crossed in four quick, sinking steps to Eamon, grabbed him by the shoulders, and started dragging.

One problem. With every backward step my feet went deeper into the sand. “Stan!” I snapped. I took a firmer grip under Eamon’s limp arms and heaved hard, fighting my way through the rapidly softening sand. “Hold it together!”

Which wasn’t really fair. It wasn’t his fault in the first place; he was just trying to clean up my mess. But right at the moment the price of failure would be a little out of my budget.

The news crews were paying attention now, running toward us with lights and cameras, shouting questions. That drew the attention of some firefighters and cops.

The term media circus doesn’t really do justice to that moment when the clowns start rolling out of the tiny little car, does it?