"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 d.a.m.n 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 h.e.l.l 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 a.n.a.lysis 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 gla.s.s 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 pa.s.sed 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 s.p.a.ce 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 c.o.ke-bottle gla.s.ses- 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 c.o.ke-bottle Gla.s.ses was winning. n.o.body 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 pa.s.sed 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.

c.o.ke-bottle Gla.s.ses stood up to his lofty height of about five feet, straightened his nondescript but highly expensive gray suit, and took off his gla.s.ses. 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 partic.i.p.ated.

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 c.r.a.p 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 f.u.c.king Djinn; the Rule of Three won't work. And I'm not telling you a thing, you son of a b.i.t.c.h," 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 n.o.body 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.

I tried to bring myself under control, and reached for wind . . .

. . . and slammed hard into a barrier that was as complete as anything I'd ever encountered. Somebody had this place locked down. Tight. It had the smell of Djinn to it.

"Please," Lazlo said. "There is no need for this unpleasantness. All you have to do is tell us what happened. Surely there's nothing you object to in that. I'm certain you already told the story to the Wardens. Why not to us?"

Because I didn't want to remember it.

There was a warning zap through the chair, just enough to sting and make the tears in my eyes break free. I gasped in shallow breaths. h.e.l.l, they probably already knew the story, I told myself.

They knew everything else. Clearly, fighting wasn't getting me anywhere except a fast trip to a largely hypothetical afterlife. I wasn't ready to die again. Not yet.

I sucked in a deep breath, managed to straighten myself up, and tried my voice. It sounded weak, but steady.

"I'll tell you," I said. "But don't blame me if you don't like it."

I hated Chaz from the first moment I laid eyes on him, and I couldn't really say why. Ever have that happen? Makes you feel ridiculous and prejudicial, but it's nothing you can help. It's some cellular process of repulsion that you have no control over.

That was me and Chaz. Repulsion at first sight. The act of being pleasant to him for more than a minute at a time made me ache like I'd been mining granite with a teaspoon. After an entire day of poking through the chaotic mess of Chaz's confiscated records, enduring enough paper cuts that it const.i.tuted human rights violations, I called back to the office and complained about the a.s.signment. I wasn't trying to get out of it, exactly, but I had myself a good whine and begged for help. My boss, John Foster, gave me rea.s.surances and plat.i.tudes in his warm Southern voice and told me not to kill the b.a.s.t.a.r.d.

One thing I did figure out, from the mess of recycling piled on my bed. Chaz had too much money. Way too much money. I'm not talking about personal funds, like being born rich, although he probably had been; I'm talking about income. I knew how much a Warden of his pay grade should make-I had the pay tables with me.

He had five times that coming in and going right back out again, to not-very-well-concealed Cayman Island accounts.

Chaz was definitely dirty. It was just a matter of determining the kind of dirt it was. After mapping the weather patterns, over and over, I decided it had to do with smuggling. Somebody was paying him to make adjustments at specific times, on specific dates.

Recurring patterns, too. Cla.s.sic.

I needed to catch him in the act, though. The Wardens were notoriously forgiving, unless you were caught red-handed; I intended for Chaz to be dead to rights.

Mainly because, as previously stated, I just couldn't stand the little p.r.i.c.k. He kept showing up at my motel room, trying to sleaze me into bed, as if that would somehow magically convince me not to hang him out to dry.

On the fourth day, I threw back the curtains and discovered that morning had dawned early and cold, the way it does in the desert; there was something inviting about the emptiness stretching toward the blue blur of mountains.

According to the patterns I'd been mapping, today would be a day Chaz would be trying some manipulation. No use looking in the direction the storm would be blowing; you had to track it upstream, to the point at which it provided cover and protection. It was a good three miles out in the desert, as the vulture flew. No way the Jaguar was made for off-roading, so it was going to be a hike.

I could do with burning off some frustration, I decided, not to mention the carb load I'd built up while chowing down on tuna-fish sandwiches and fries. I had bikini season to worry about. Plus, going on foot would give me an advantage of stealth.

I changed into a jog bra and sweatpants, threw on a thin white T- shirt, and laced up running shoes. There was coffee down in the chilly lobby; the fountain was still tinkling madly away. Somebody- probably a late-night partier-had added a floating Budweiser cup to the extravaganza of dusty silk plants and spray-on stone. I chugged down some heavy-duty caffeine, liberally diluted with fake creamer, and waved to the desk clerk on the way out.

I paused inside the gla.s.s doors to adjust my shoes, and as I did, I felt weather shifting. I looked up and found the sky clear, laced with a few high-riding cirrus clouds and reflected orange sunrise. Chaz was already starting up, amazingly enough; I'd honestly thought that he might postpone things, considering he had an auditor sitting right in a ringside seat.

He thought he was good enough that I wouldn't notice. Idiot.

The wind was shifting to the east. I could clearly feel the tug of power from that direction. I braced myself with one hand on the wall and drifted up to the aetheric. Chaz was working quietly to slow a high, fast-moving airflow, creating a cool air ma.s.s to the north. That was what caused the wind shift . . . warm air flowing into the downdrafts. Subtle, and effective. He was creating a h.e.l.l of a lot of chop that extended in about a five-square-mile radius over my little patch of desert.

I went back to the desk and called Chaz's home office. No answer.

I tried his cell phone, too, and got voice mail. He was out there, all right, working on site. Good. I'd be able to get a look at what was going on.

I walked outside, braced myself against the building, and stretched my tendons. Overhead, a small plane buzzed the blue, making erratic circles; it gave up and headed off to the south. Away from the interdicted area affected by the weather shift. I couldn't tell what kind of plane it was, but traffic patrols were common over this expanse; it saved the cost of keeping too many state cruisers on the highways.

Aerial surveillance . . .

. . . and maybe somebody had something that they didn't want that plane to see. Which explained the chop that Chaz had created a few thousand feet up.

I finished stretching and jogged out onto the shoulder of the road, heading toward the center of the problem area. It was a diagonal line from the hotel and the road, straight out into the middle of G.o.d knew where; I oriented myself by the aetheric, not line-of-sight. Getting lost wasn't going to be a problem.

The first half mile was hard as my body adjusted to the new climate; the air was sharp and brisk going down, thinner than I was used to. It tasted sweet, full of subtle dry perfume. No sign of the surveillance plane, which had evidently decided to go surveil somewhere more comfortable. Up on the aetheric, Chaz was still making changes to keep things balanced, but balanced in his favor. I could undo that with a little judicious application of force, but until I knew better what I was up against, there was no reason. Besides, there was no advantage to letting him know that I'd even noticed.

Running in sand was twice as tiring as on a flat surface, but I relished the burn. Sunrise came in a slow, glorious explosion of color as I jogged-layers of gold, tangerine, mauve, dark blue. Nothing moved out in the emptiness; no breeze stirred the sand, and it was too early for snakes and too late for owls. Overhead, an early-rising hawk rode thermals, and out to the far eastern horizon a cloudbank brushed its heavy skirts across mountains.