Thin Air (21 page)

It was intoxicating. Freeing. I heard myself laugh, and reached out to touch a glittering chain of molecules. Lightning sparked through the net and flashed in my eyes down in the real world.

It was like playing God. Beautiful and terrifying.

The first lightning strike hit the roof, and the concussion was so intense at this close range that I went temporarily deaf and blind, and every hair follicle on my body seemed to rise in the electrical aura. When it passed, I barely had time to draw a breath before the next bolt hit steel, and then a third. Hammer of the gods.

When the wind hit the smoking, glowing structure, spinning down in a dark spiral from the low-hanging clouds, the metal just collapsed in on itself like a dropped Tinkertoy model, and the whole beach seemed to vibrate from the impact. Fire licked and hissed as some of the more flammable components caught, but it wasn't likely to spread; the rain was intense, and concentrated right on the worst of it.

Venna hadn't moved. She was smiling slightly, and when she looked at me she said, “Now you have to balance it.”

“What?” I yelled over the roar of thunder and pounding, wind-driven surf. I stumbled toward her and swiped wet hair back from my face. “Balance what?”

“The scales,” Venna said. “Make it all go away, but don't let the energy bleed over into more storms.”

“You mean it's not
over
?”

Venna shook her head. She'd let the funnel cloud dissipate, its purpose completed, and the rain was slacking off from a monsoon to a downpour. “You'd better hurry,” she said. “The Wardens will be screwing it up if you don't hurry. They never can get it right.”

I had no idea what she meant, but Venna was notably not helping me. She crossed her arms and stood there, Zen Alice, untouched by the chaos she'd helped unleash.

I turned my attention to the storm.

“The Wardens teach you to do this from science,” she said very softly; I didn't know how it was possible to hear her over the wind, but she came through as if it were a still, silent day. “Science can fail you. Learn to listen to it. Sing to it. It doesn't have to be your enemy. Even predators can be pets.”

I struggled to make sense out of what I was seeing. So much detail, so much
data
, all in spectra the human eye wasn't meant to see, much less understand.
I can't do this. It's too big. It's too much.

I took a deep breath, stretched my hands out to either side, and stepped into the heart of the storm.

It
hurt.
Not only physically, though the windblown sand and debris lashed at me like a dozen whips. It got inside my head, and howled, and I flailed blindly for something I could touch, could control, could stop….

And then, when I opened my eyes on the aetheric, it all made sense. The swirling chaos became a shifting puzzle of infinite intricacy, and where the pieces met, sparks hissed through the dark, bright as New Year's fireworks lighting the sky. I reached out and moved two of the pieces apart; the spark leaped and died in midair. I tried it again and again, until the grand, gorgeous pattern of the air was whisper-quiet, glowing in peaceful shifting colors.

When I blinked and fell back into the real world, I could see the stars.

Venna gave a very quiet sigh. “Yes,” she said. “Exactly like that. Now you are Ma'at.”

 

So now I was guilty of some kind of supernatural sabotage, at the very least, but I figured it probably boiled down to plain old insurance fraud. Something simple and skanky, something with an immediate financial benefit for Eamon, of course.

But hey, at least I'd learned a useful skill.

“Astonishing,” Eamon murmured, looking at the wreckage and all of the emergency crews swarming around the scene in the predawn light. We were sitting on the low rock wall—Eamon, Venna, me, and Sarah, with the two Wardens asleep behind the rocks, held in that state by Venna. I didn't think Eamon could see Venna at all, because he hadn't asked about her, and she didn't exactly fit in.

Didn't seem prudent to mention her.

“Complete destruction,” Eamon said, and seemed utterly satisfied. “You are a one-woman wrecking crew, love.”

“Thanks,” I said with an ice edge of chill. “We done now?”

“Done?” His eyes were preoccupied, and it took him a second to pull his attention away from the human aftermath on the beach to focus on me completely. “Ah, yes. I did say that I wanted only this one thing from you, didn't I?”

Bad feeling bad feeling bad feeling.
“That's what you said.”

“I don't think that will be possible after all,” Eamon said, and smiled just a bit. Just enough to keep me from killing him. “This is the start of a beautiful and very profitable relationship, Jo. After I marry your sister—”

“After you
what
?” I blurted. “Time-out! Nobody's getting married. Especially not to
you
.”

Sarah didn't even look up to meet my fierce stare. Haggard and strung out, but my sister, dammit. My family. “You can't tell me what to do,” she said.

“Sarah, wake up! He's a criminal! And he's a
murderer
!”

“Yeah, well, what about you?” she flung back. “You think you're not guilty of things? You think you aren't just as bad? Don't you dare lecture me!”

“Keep your voice down!”

“Or what? You'll call the cops? Go right ahead, Jo; they're right over there!”

Sure enough, two uniformed cops standing next to their cruiser were looking in our direction. I swallowed and tried to moderate my own voice to something in the range of reasonable. “Sarah, you do not want to jump into this. Really. You don't know this man. You don't know what he's capable of doing.”

Eamon took her hand. His long, lovely fingers curled around hers, and then he kissed her fingers, staring at me with bright, challenging eyes the whole time. “She's not jumping into anything,” he murmured. “And really, Joanne, you're making far too big an issue out of this. I only want to make her happy.”

“You want to use her,” I said. “You want to threaten her to get me to do whatever you want. Trust
you
to find a way to make money off of disaster.”

He made a
tsk
ing sound. “Construction companies, insurance companies, cleanup crews, police, fire, ambulance, paramedics, hospitals, doctors, funeral parlors, coffin makers…all those people make money off of disaster. And thousands more. I'm merely a novice.”

“You want to
cause
them!”

“Don't be so negative,” he said. “Freak accidents happen. No reason not to arrange them to our benefit once in a while.”

Venna hadn't moved. She continued sitting on the wall, neat and prim, kicking her black patent-leather shoes like a kid, watching the emergency crews with every evidence of total fascination. I shot her an exasperated look. “Help me out here.”

“It's human stuff. I can't,” she said serenely. “Besides, they can't see or hear me. I'm a figment of your imagination, Joanne.”

Hardly. My imagination would have conjured up a hunky, half-naked guy Djinn, preferably one who looked like David. I glared at her.

“Do you want me to kill him?” Venna asked, and met my eyes. It was a shock, seeing the complete flat disinterest in them. “I can, you know. I can kill anyone I want. Any human, anyway. Then you don't have to worry about him anymore. I could make it fast. He wouldn't even feel it.”

I stared at her for a long, silent second, and then shook my head. No, I wasn't prepared to do that. Not even to Eamon.

Venna sighed again, jumped down off the wall, and looked up into my face. “It's been long enough,” she said. “We should think about going now. Do you want their memories before we go?”

“Do I…what?” I was aware it looked to Eamon and Sarah like I was talking to empty child-sized space, because they were exchanging a look. The she's-lost-her-mind kind of look.

“Like what you did before, although you didn't do it very well,” Venna said. “I can take their memories and give them to you. If you want. But you may not like it. Decide now, because we can't stay here much longer.”

Memories. Sarah was the key to a lot of my childhood, wasn't she? Who else would I get that kind of thing from?

I nodded.

“Oh, you don't want hers,” Venna said. “Hers won't be very good for you. You want
his
.”

Venna didn't even bother touching me. She just turned those incandescent blue eyes on Eamon, and I was sucked into a different world.

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?”