Thin Air

SIX

I’m going to have to kill her, Marion was thinking as she watched a much younger version of me walk out of a conference room. I was defiant, I was gawky, I was just out of adolescence, and she thought I was the most dangerous thing she’d ever seen.

“This is a mistake,” said the old man sitting next to her. He had fine white hair, a barrel chest, fair skin with red blotches that spoke of a fondness for the whiskey barrel. “That bitch is trouble.”

“Bob,” Marion said, “give it a rest. The voting’s over. You lost.” She said that not because she disagreed with him, but because she simply disliked the man. Bad Bob, her memories named him. There was something about him that set her teeth on edge, always had. He was, without a doubt, one of the best of the Weather Wardens in terms of skill, but in terms of personality…

He was staring at the door through which the earlier version of me had exited. He and Marion weren’t the only ones in the room; there were three others involved in a separate side conversation, muttering to one another and casting glances toward Bad Bob that made me think he wasn’t exactly well loved, though obviously he commanded respect. Or fear. “I’m telling you, she’s trouble,” he said. “We haven’t heard the last of her. One of these days you’ll be hunting her down.”

It was eerily like what Marion herself had just thought, and not for the first time she found herself wondering if Bad Bob had some latent Earth powers. But she’d never seen any trace of it, and she’d looked.

It was her job, looking. And it was a job she hated, and loved, and realized was perhaps the most important job of all.

“Maybe,” she said quietly, “someday I’ll be hunting you, Bob. It could happen.”

He turned toward her and met her eyes, and she couldn’t suppress a shiver. There was something about his eyes, she decided. Cold, arctic blue, soulless eyes. He had charm, she supposed, but she’d never felt it herself. She’d seen its effect on others. She knew how much loyalty he inspired in those he commanded, and so she was cautious, very cautious indeed.

She’d gone against him on this vote, to save Joanne Baldwin’s young life, and she knew he wouldn’t forget.

He smiled. “That’ll be a treat, won’t it? You and me?”

She said nothing, and she didn’t break the stare. It was a gift of her genetic heritage that she could look so utterly impassive when emotions inside were roiling. She knew he saw nothing in her dark brown eyes or in her face. No fear. No anticipation. Nothing to feed from.

Bad Bob Biringanine shook his head, smiled, and walked away, and Marion took in a slow, steadying breath. She was aware, on some level, that she had just passed a test nearly as dangerous as the one the young girl had almost failed. Would have failed, had it not been for the strong support of one or two others on the intake committee.

Marion gathered her paperwork and walked out to her car, in the parking lot of the hotel. It was another oppressively warm day in Florida, one she had not dressed for, as she’d flown in from the cooler Northwest; she was wearing a black silk shirt under a leather jacket stitched with Lakota beadwork. A gift from a friend who produced materials for the tourist trade, but saved the best for her fellow tribal leaders. Marion had recently been in the mood to emphasize her heritage.

She started her rental car and did not bother with the air-conditioning; it was a simple matter to adjust her own internal body temperature down to make herself comfortable. She waved to Paul and two of the other Wardens, who stood locked in conversation near Paul’s sporty gold convertible. No sign of the girl in the parking lot; maybe she’d already left.

“So,” Marion’s Djinn said, misting into reality in the passenger seat next to her. “Are you on vacation now?”

“Do I ever get vacation?” she asked, and smiled slightly. “I assume you’re here for a reason.” Her Djinn’s name was Cetan Nagin, or Shadow Hawk in English. She’d given him the Lakota name, since he’d refused to admit to one of his own. Proud, this one, and not above trickery. Djinn appeared as the subconscious of their owners dictated, and it had disturbed her a great deal that Cetan Nagin had taken the form of a Native American man, with long braided hair and secretive black eyes. His skin was darker than her own, and it shimmered with a phantom copper tint that did not seem quite…human.

And she had realized for quite some time that she was falling in love with him. No doubt he realized it as well. They did not speak of it.

“A reason,” he repeated, and looked at her directly. “You asked to be informed if any of the Wardens violated protocol.”

“Substantial violations, yes.”

“Define substantial.”

Ah, the Djinn. They did love specificity. “Use of powers for personal gratification or gain. Use of powers without adequate provision for balancing of the reactive effects.”

“How very scientific,” Cetan Nagin said, and slouched against the seat at an angle. He was wearing blue jeans and a long black leather coat, and he must have known how good he looked to her. His eyes were half-closed, and she knew he could feel the sparks burning inside her. It was as if he fed on it at times. “Thank you.”

“Did you have something to report?” she asked. Her heart was hammering, and she concentrated on driving, on the feel of the steering wheel beneath her palms, the vibration of the road. The cars around her on the busy street. Real world. Sometimes she felt only half in it.

“The Warden you dislike,” Cetan Nagin said. “He crosses those lines regularly. Did you know?”

Bad Bob. Of course he did. She had no proof, but Cetan Nagin could provide it, of course. He could provide whatever she required, but then it would be her own responsibility to bring the case before the senior leadership of the Wardens, and Bad Bob had many friends and allies there.

“I know,” she said quietly. “I choose battles I can win.”

Cetan Nagin shrugged and looked away. “The girl you were testing today.”

“What about her?” Surely she was too young to be corrupted already.

“He hates her,” the Djinn said. “Perhaps she’s a way to entrap him. If he kills her, you will have a case to bring forth, won’t you?”

As much as she felt heat for Cetan Nagin, as much as she wanted him, she feared him at moments like this. The Djinn were game players, politicians, and even at the best of times it was never clear whose side they were on. If they ever get free… It was a thought she didn’t want to linger over.

“If that happened, I would have a case,” she agreed.

“Then all you have to do is wait,” he said, and smiled. “Now. As to that vacation…”

She glanced at him, and his smile grew warmer.

And so, reluctantly, did hers.

“I was thinking I might go with you,” Cetan Nagin said. “If you’re willing.”

She tried not to be, but there were some things that were simply meant to happen.

Blur.

I lost my hold on the memory; Marion was fighting me, trying to keep her private life private. I released and sped past other memories. It wasn’t just the cold calculation of her leaving me as a stalking horse for Bad Bob that chilled me; it was more than that. Marion had hunted me at the behest of the Wardens. She’d trapped me and tried to kill me more than once.

Lewis had let me believe she could be trusted, but she couldn’t. Marion was a zealot. She would follow her ethics past any personal considerations, past likes or dislikes.

Still, there was something more. Cetan Nagin. Her Djinn had been taken from her, and I’d gotten him back. And she hadn’t forgotten that I’d saved his life.

The richness of Marion’s inner self was mesmerizing, and I wanted to experience it, know more, know everything. The soft touch of her Djinn’s hand down her back. The white-hot presence of the Earth filling her like liquid light. The cold fear that drove her when she was forced to destroy other Wardens who’d misused their powers, or couldn’t be trusted…

I wanted it all. I wanted a life. Even someone else’s.

Something knocked me out of Marion’s head with the force of a car crash, and I slammed back into my own body. I jackknifed forward in the chair, cradling my throbbing head. The pain was crushing. Every sensation felt more intense; every sound rang louder. I curled up in a ball in the chair, gasping for breath.

“Marion!” Lewis was shouting, his voice as loud as a bell in my head. “Oh, God. God, no. Lee! Get your ass back here now!”

When I tried to run, Lewis grabbed me, slammed me down on the floor, and tried to restrain me. And all of a sudden I felt a surge of utter terror.

I couldn’t let this happen to me. Not again.

So I lashed out, the whole world dissolved in chaos, screaming, and pain, and then I was gone.

I woke up alone, in a cell.

Technically, maybe not so much a cell as a hospital room, but it might as well have been a cell. There were bars on the narrow window, plain ugly walls, and I was cuffed with leather restraints to the metal bars on the bed. They’d stripped me and put me into a nasty-colored hospital gown.

I was all alone.

“Hey!” My voice came out a frightened croak. “Hey, anybody! Help?”

There was a button next to my hand. I pressed it, and kept frantically pressing it until I heard a buzzing sound, and the cell door clicked open.

It admitted the doctor who’d gone off with Kevin earlier-Dr. Lee. He came back up with not one but two security guards, along with a small flying wedge of nurses.

No sign of Marion or Lewis.

The crowd stayed well out of reach, even though I was restrained.

“Hello,” Dr. Lee said. He sounded like he was making an effort to be cheerful. “Feeling better?”

“Peachy,” I said, and swallowed. My mouth felt like it had been upholstered in fur. “Water?”

A nurse poured me a cup, added a sippy straw, and held it for me. The effort of lifting my head seemed exhausting. I drained the cup and collapsed back to the pillow, gasping for air.

“You’re lucky,” Lee said. “You nearly fried your entire central nervous system. If Lewis hadn’t been here, you’d be hooked up to a ventilator right now, and we’d be transferring you to permanent care.”

I let that sink in for a second, then asked, “Marion?”

Silence. Lee stared at me for a long moment, then checked the monitors. “She’s in a coma,” he said. “We can’t wake her up.”

Oh, crap. Crap!

“I didn’t mean-”

“It doesn’t matter,” he cut me off, but I could hear the anger under his veneer of calm. “I need you to rest. Your scans are still far from normal. We’ll talk about all this later.”

I jerked at the restraints. “Can you take these off?”

“No,” he said. “As soon as you’re able to be moved, you’ll be transferred to a facility where you can be properly examined and controlled.”

Meaning I was under arrest. The security guards, grim and well-armed, more than confirmed that. I didn’t like it, but there was really nothing I could do about it.

And really nothing I should do about it.

“Can I talk to Lewis?” I asked, very respectfully. Lee shot a glance toward the security people.

“I’ll let him know you’re asking for him,” Lee said. “I’m going to give you a sedative now, all right? Just something to help you sleep.”

He used drugs instead of the Earth Warden-patented hand-on-forehead; I wanted to do something to stop him, but I controlled the impulse. Clearly, it wasn’t going to be a good idea for me to start fighting, not with the odds as they were.

David, I thought. David will help me.

I wondered where the hell he was, but before I could do more than wonder, the fog swept in, rendered my mind cool and blank, and I drifted away.

When I woke up, it was dark, and there was someone sitting in the chair next to me, snoring. I blinked and tried to rub my eyes, and remembered the restraints only when they clicked and rattled the bars.

Which cut off the snoring. A light clicked on, and I saw Lewis’s tired but freshly shaved face in the pale glow.

“Hey,” he said, and reached out to wrap his fingers around mine. “How do you feel?”

“Pissed,” I said. “I’m tied to a bed, in case you hadn’t noticed.”

“I noticed,” he said, and yawned. “Trust me, the restraints are there for a reason.”

“What reason?”

“Your protection,” he said. “I know you. If you had half a chance of breaking out, you’d already be blowing the door and running for the exit, and that will get you killed right now. I’m trying to help you, Jo, but you’ve got to help yourself.”

“Fine,” I said. “What exactly did I do?”

He blinked a couple of times. “You don’t know?”

“Look, I know that Marion’s in a coma, but-”

“You screwed around with things that you weren’t ready for, and you put her in that coma. Then you went after me.”

“I-I what?”

Lewis didn’t change his expression, not at all. “You heard me. If I hadn’t put you down, hard, you’d have ripped my brain apart like a piñata.”

“But-why would I do that?” I felt bewildered, alien in my own skin.

“Post-traumatic stress, I’m guessing. The point is, you were a danger to everybody around you.”

“But…not now.” I said it like I believed it. Lewis didn’t grace me with agreement, but he didn’t disagree, either. He just sat, gently providing reassurance through the contact of our hands. “Lewis, I don’t want to hurt anybody. Really. You have to believe that.”

“I do,” he said. “But the best thing right now is for you to rest and get your strength back. I had to put you down pretty hard. Harder than I’d have preferred. You need to heal.”

“Lee said I’d be moved somewhere else,” I said. “It sounded like prison.”

Lewis’s thumb stopped stroking my fingers. I wasn’t sure I liked that.

“It’s not prison,” he said. “But it’s a medical facility, and it’s run by people from Marion’s division. If they can’t find a way to stop you from misusing your Earth powers, they’re going to have to block the channels to stop it from happening. I don’t want to see that happen, so you need to concentrate on staying calm and steady, okay? No overreactions. No attacking people. And quit trying to eat peoples’ brains.”

I laughed, but it was shaky, and so was his smile. “I swear, I’ll try,” I said. “Has David been here?”

Lewis looked away. “Not yet,” he said.

“Is it normal, him being gone this long?”

“You know it isn’t. But there’s no way we can check on him, so we’ll just have to wait.”

There was a discreet knock at the door, and it did the buzz thing. Lewis leaned back as a security guard leaned in. “You’re wanted on the phone, sir,” the guard said. “Conference call.”

Lewis nodded, then gave me a distracted kind of grin. “Politics,” he said. “Marion was right. There’s always time for politics. Rest, okay? I’ll come back.”

I didn’t trust myself to say anything. He left without a backward glance, and I tried to close my eyes and damp down the panic inside.

I’m trapped. They’re taking me to prison. No, worse-they were taking me to screw around with my head, to keep me from hurting people.

I was, in Warden terms, mentally ill. Crazy with a capital K. Except somehow, I knew that I wasn’t-and that if I let them mess with my head, that would be bad. Very, very bad.

A monitor beeped somewhere near my head. My heart rate was up, and getting faster. Some other electronic alarm joined the chorus-blood pressure? I felt sick all of a sudden, almost dizzy. There was a hissing sound in my head, like interference, and this terrible pressure inside my chest…

In the corner of the room, a shadow stirred. I couldn’t see who it was for a second, and then once my bleary eyes focused I felt a jolt of sheer terror driving away what was left of my drugged sleep.

I had a visitor, and the visitor was me.

No…the visitor looked like me, right down to the nasty hospital gown and unkempt hair. But there was something cold and inhuman behind her blue eyes, something that wasn’t me at all.

It just stood there, looking at me, and I could feel space warping between us, see the air shimmering and turning dark and thick.

We were drawing each other closer, but at the same time, I could feel the sickening drain on my life.

“Help!” I tried to scream it-Lewis hadn’t gone far, he couldn’t have-but my voice was a weak, choked squeak in my throat. Oh God. It took a step toward me, and I felt a corresponding surge of dizzying weakness sweep over me.

“Quiet,” the Demon whispered, and moved even closer. I gasped for breath, but it was like breathing at the bottom of the ocean. I was drowning in the dark. “We’re nearly there. Nearly there. You need to let go, let go and give me what I need.”

I knew in a flash that this was why Jonathan had come to warn me. Right now, the Demon was missing something, something vital. Something I had.

And against all odds, I needed to hang onto it.

I needed to fight for my life, because I was the only one who could.

Of course, I was also drugged and tied to a bed, but nobody promised it was going to be easy.

David. God, David, please.

If he could hear me, he couldn’t respond. Maybe he was hurt, or imprisoned, or just cut off and unable to get to me. I could almost feel him out there, feel his frustration and fear, but…

Look inside.

It was a whisper, and I didn’t know where it was coming from, but it steadied me. I got my breath and reached deep within, reached in for something I didn’t even know I had.

Power flowed up through me, thick and honey-sweet, slow as the heartbeat of the Earth herself.

Yes. There. Just like that.

The restraints were leather and metal, both things that Earth Wardens could manipulate and control. I dissolved them into sand, pulled my wrists free of the gritty pile, and rolled painfully up to my knees to face the Demon.

She stopped moving, staring at me. If I scared her at all, I couldn’t tell it from her expression.

“Back off,” I panted. “Right now.” As a threat, it was pretty empty…I didn’t have a clue how to hurt this thing. But she was standing there, waiting, frowning just a little. Maybe she didn’t know much about me, either.

Maybe she was just a little bit afraid.

She said, with an eerie flatness, “There you are. I’ve been searching for you. It’s time to finish this.” She held out a hand toward me, and I felt the shimmering, sickening blackness sink deeper into me. “Do you know who I am?”

My voice was barely a whisper. “Demon.” I didn’t doubt that, not at all. There was something so utterly wrong about her…

“No.” Something changed in her expression-no longer doll-blank, but a glimmer of something else. Life. Personality. My personality. “Not anymore. I’m becoming something else. I’m becoming you.”

I swayed on my knees, too sick to move, too terrified to do anything. She came closer, and with every step, she was…more me. Expression, body language, confidence. Even the smile.

“Why are you doing this?” I managed to whisper. Her fingers were moving toward me, and I knew, knew without the shadow of a doubt, that if she touched me, it was all over.

“No choice,” she said. “Your memories changed me. I have to complete the process. Only one of us in this world, and it will be me. You’re weak. I’m the stronger.”

“No.” My breath felt thick and stale in my lungs already, as if I was gone and didn’t know it. “David-”

That smile was definitely mine, right down to the lopsided twist at the corner of her lips. “He won’t know. Nobody will know, because I won’t be pretending-I’ll be you. Completely.”

I fell backward as her fingers moved toward me; I rolled over and used the cold metal bars of the hospital bed to pull myself to a sitting position. I lashed out with Earth powers, feeling for the cold, solid structure and heating it at the atomic level; the metal sagged, turned liquid, and hit the floor with a hiss.

I rolled off the edge of the bed, avoided the molten mess, and backed away. I was in a corner, and the Demon was between me and the door. My head felt like I’d slammed it in a door a couple of times, and my whole body seemed cold, on the verge of giving up.

The building was made of concrete and metal and wood, and under normal circumstances that might have posed a problem, but I was beyond panic, and I was beyond controlling the surging, deadly flow of the Earth power in my body. I lashed out and felt the concrete soften. I liquefied the metal struts in the wall, and blew a hole in it with a compressed ram of air that manifested so suddenly it made my ears pop from the pressure.

The wall collapsed in a hail of debris and sparks, and I stumbled over it, barefoot and dazed. All I wanted was to get away, to get to Lewis and find some kind of protection if nothing else…

Lewis wasn’t in the next room. Dr. Lee, two nurses, one security guard who fumbled for his sidearm at the sight of me. I must have been pretty scary; he took his time.

And then the other me stepped through the rubble behind me, and I saw Dr. Lee and the others perceive, if not comprehend, the impossible.

My double made an annoyed sound. “Now you’ve done it.”

I didn’t know what she was going to do before I felt the balance of power in the room tilt-tilt drastically-and before I could even try to grab for it everybody in the next room exploded into flames, screaming. Dr. Lee. The nurses. The armed security guard, who whirled in a confused blur of combustion, trying to smother the blaze. I stared numbly at them, unable to react for a second, and then grabbed the oxygen from around their bodies to smother the fire. They dropped, but only one was still screaming. Even though I’d reacted, it hadn’t been fast enough; they were badly burned, maybe dying.

I whirled to look at the Demon, but there was no sign of her. I could feel her, though. She was here, somewhere just out of sight. I felt the sick surge in my chest, and knew she was very close.

I couldn’t do anything for the victims. I ran for the door, sobbing for breath, and clawed it open. Beyond was the waiting room, empty of everyone. I heard alarms screaming, and as I got my bearings I heard a door open to my right.

Kevin looked out.

“Inside!” I screamed, and reached out with a blast of hardened air to push him back, grab the door, and slam it shut. I melted the lock, too. “Don’t come near me!” I kept replaying it in my head, those startled people turning toward me, then the flames…that had been my fault. I hadn’t realized how ruthless she was.

I couldn’t take the chance she’d hurt someone else.

I heard Lewis’s voice, and the temptation to run toward him was very strong, but I thought about what could happen. I can’t. I can’t risk him. I need to get out of here, now.

I felt the blackness pressing in again, close and thick, and stumbled drunkenly against a coffee table. I looked down at it, picked it up on a cushion of air, and hurled it full force against the plate glass window on the other side of the room.

It bounced off. Hardened glass.

I forced myself to think. Even hardened glass was silica, and silica was something Earth Wardens could manipulate. I started to unravel its chemical structure, returning it to its base elements. Given time, I’d have just dissolved it into a pile of sand, but that wasn’t fast enough. As soon as I got the process fully started, I launched the coffee table at it again with the force of a battering ram, and this time, the whole window shattered with a tremendous crash.

I scrambled up, heedless of the broken shards, and was just about to jump when something hit me with tremendous force, right in the back, and slammed me face-first into the ground outside. I tried to roll over, but it felt like a freight train was parked on my back.

That was it. I was about to die. I decided to commemorate it by cursing the Demon’s heritage, its hygiene, its sexual habits…

And then a very soft, high-pitched voice, right next to my ear, said, “I’m trying to save your life. Please shut up now.”

I stopped, astonished, and realized that the way I was lying, I ought to be able to see my right hand. It was lying right in front of my face…but it wasn’t there. I wiggled my fingers experimentally and clenched my fist. I could feel the play of muscle, but there was nothing there.

I’d gone invisible.

“What the hell…?” That earned me a thump on the back of the head. “Ow! Who the hell are you?” Someone, obviously, with the ability to turn me completely invisible. The scary thing was that it didn’t really narrow down my choices.

“Quiet!” the voice hissed, and I obeyed, because I felt the Demon close, very close. The blackness swept over me like gravity, as if I were going to be pulled into her and destroyed, smashed apart at the cellular level.

And then it faded again, slowly, leaving me weak and sick and somehow…less.

I found myself being yanked upright by some tremendous force, and held there when my knees wobbled. I couldn’t see anything near me, but then, when I looked down, I couldn’t see myself, either.

“Hold on,” the voice said. “This is going to hurt.”

She wasn’t kidding. Heat swept over me, and then a feeling of being instantly flash-frozen, and then every nerve in my body screamed as one…

…and then I was on my knees in deep, soft carpeting the exact color of caramel.

I pitched forward, face-first, and tried to scream, because whatever had just happened to me was wrong even by the considerably liberal standards of wrongness I was getting used to.

I couldn’t make a sound.

I watched as my body started to come out of its invisibility, growing shadows first, then a kind of translucent reality, and then I was flesh and blood again.

And I could scream, but this time, I managed to lock it in my throat and moderate it to a helpless sort of whimper.

My benefactor-if you could call her that-walked around to face me. I looked up. Not far up, because she was only about four feet tall, cute as a button, a perfect little blond girl with inhumanly blue eyes and an outfit straight out of Alice in Wonderland, complete with patent leather Mary Janes.

“You can get up now,” she said. “I don’t think you’re hurt.”

Not hurt? She had to be kidding. I rolled slowly on my side and worked my way up to a sitting position, bracing myself with my arms. Standing up was not on the menu, not yet.

“What-” My voice was a hoarse croak; I cleared my throat and tried again. “What the hell did you do to me? Who-?”

“My name is Venna,” she said. “I’m Djinn.”

No freakin’ kidding. I stared at her mutely, and she folded her hands over the front of her white pinafore and stared right back without blinking.

“You don’t remember me,” she said. Not a question. “You used to call me Alice. You could call me that again, if you like.” She said it with the generosity of a noble dispensing a penny to a peasant. I just kept on staring. Why I’d know her as Alice was pretty self-evident, given her appearance. I was waiting for the Red Queen and the Mad Hatter to join the party. “I had to take you away. You couldn’t fight her. She was taking you apart, and if I hadn’t stopped you, you’d be dead now.”

I finally found my voice. “Did David send you?”

Venna’s blue eyes didn’t blink, and her expression didn’t shift, but I sensed that she was choosing her next words too carefully. “David cannot send me anywhere,” she said. I wanted for her to get around to a further explanation. It wasn’t forthcoming.

“I need to go back,” I said. “She’ll kill everybody back there.”

“No,” Venna said. “She killed the ones who saw you together. Now she’s convincing the rest that she is you.”

“She-wait, what?”

“She’s given herself up. She will tell them that she has recovered her memories-and that will be true, because the Demon already had them. She will tell them that she’s you, and…” Venna shrugged. “They will believe her.”

“But-that can’t happen. That can’t happen!” She just looked at me. Obviously, it could. “They’ll know. Lewis will know.”

She was already shaking her head. “Any doubts can be explained away. She’s been through a great trauma. Any of them can tell that, and they won’t disbelieve her story.”

I grasped at my last straw. “David! David will figure it out. Hello, mother of his child! Surely he knows me better than-”

“He would know if she could be perceived as a Demon. She’s different now. He also has no reason not to accept her.” Venna’s eyes seemed to get deeper, darker, and scarier. She looked twelve, and twelve hundred. Twelve thousand. “You can’t win this by going against her. It will only destroy you, and everyone who believes you.”

I found I was able to get up, and staggered across the carpet to a king-sized bed, where I collapsed in an untidy sprawl. “So what am I supposed to do? What if she follows me?”

Venna cocked her head at me, interested as a robin with a worm. “Do as I say,” she said. “You will be safe here, so long as you don’t go out or talk to anyone. She can only find you when she’s close-the same way you can sense her. As long as you avoid attracting attention, you’ll be fine. I am going to retrieve someone who can help you.”

I had just enough spark left to ask, “Who?”

“Ashan,” she said.

“David was looking for him.”

“I know.” Venna smiled slowly. Not a comforting kind of smile. “I’ve been keeping him safe; David would have killed him. And now we need him, so it’s good that I got him, don’t you think?”

I had no idea what to say to that. Venna smoothed down her dress, nodded to me gravely, and walked off into…thin air. Just…gone.

She came back, silent as a ghost, for a few seconds, to say, “You understand…don’t go out? Don’t talk to anyone? I’ve put clothing in the closet for you. Don’t go out.”

I nodded. I might not understand much of this, but that part, I got. And hey, not a bad place, as hideouts went. I was in a big, well-appointed hotel room, immaculately clean, with a big plasma TV on the wall, a comfy bed, and-visible through the open door-a gigantic whirlpool tub.

Venna gave me one last doubtful look, then vanished. I waited, but she didn’t come back to check. So I got up, went to the window, and pulled the brocade curtains.

Below, a whole city stretched out, a dizzying array of architectural marvels, fountains, people, lights, cars, dazzling sunlight. There was a gigantic Sphinx’s rear end pointed toward my room, about seven stories down. The window sloped, and when I craned out for a look, I saw the building itself was sloped, like the side of a pyramid.

A hospitality book on the desk identified the hotel as the MGM Grand, Las Vegas.

That seemed weirdly familiar to me, but staring out at the landscape didn’t seem helpful.

I went to try out the tub instead.