Chill Factor Page 0,107

tap the rock. "You know what that is?"

"Chill Factor"

It could have been anything. A nail file. A ring. A bottle opener. "Knife," I whispered. "It's a knife."

"Good memory." Suddenly the sharp edge of it was under my chin, pressing, and I felt myself start squirming. I couldn't help it. My body wanted to get away so badly that it refused to listen to reason and stay still. "Here's how this works, Joanne. You tell me what I want to know, and you never even feel this knife move. You don't tell me, and this knife knows how to do things the hard way, the slow way. Get me?"

"Yes." I was sweating. I couldn't afford to sweat. My brain felt slow and stupid, desperate for moisture. There was so much around me, in the air... and I couldn't reach it.

"Now answer my question."

"You haven't asked one," I heard myself say.

"What?" The knife moved at my throat, pressed harder. I squeaked. "You playing with me, honey? Because you won't like the way I like to play."

"They're Djinn," I whispered breathlessly. "They live in bottles."

"What kind of bottles?"

"Any kind." No, that wasn't true. "Glass bottles. Crystal. Has to be breakable."

He made a gratified sound. The knife moved away. Where it had touched me, I felt a core of cold that stung hot after a few seconds.

"How do you use one?"

I licked my lips with a dry, rough tongue. "First you have to have the scroll-"

The knife plunged into my skin. I screamed. It was buried about a half an inch deep in my arm, and he kept moving it. Cutting. When he finally stopped, I didn't; the screaming dissolved to helpless sobs, but I couldn't shut up until I felt him prick me in another place with the sharp, merciless tip of it.

"There's no scroll," he said. "Right?"

"Right." I swallowed tears. "You're right, you son of a bitch."

He seemed to like that; I heard him chuckle. A warm, friendly sound. He patted my cheek.

"Tell me the truth," he said. "We got all the time in the world to cut through the lies."

"Quinn's been stealing them for six years," I said aloud. The road was blurring in front of my eyes.

"What?" Lewis had drifted off into a twilight state, nearly asleep; he jerked back awake at the sound of my voice. We were about two hours outside of Vegas, heading north. Mona was running at close to top speed. We were lucky in a lot of ways, but mostly because Rahel was keeping us off the radar, both literally and figuratively.

I swallowed and felt my throat click. "The Djinn. They've been disappearing for six years, and that's exactly when... when I told Quinn about the Djinn. That's how he found them. He gave up drug running to take up black-market Djinn, and I'm the one who taught him how to do it."

Lewis listened to me as it poured out-the fear, the pain, the dark, Quinn's questions. When I stopped, the air tasted poisonous. He didn't look at me.

"You don't know how much Chaz told him," he said. "Don't assume this is your fault, Jo."

"It's very much my fault, Lewis, and you know it. Chaz was a low-level functionary; he knew the basics of the Djinn but nothing else. I'd gotten the advanced-level training because they were grooming me for bigger things. I had the practical info he needed."

"Theoretical," Lewis pointed out. "You didn't own one. You'd never worked with one. You were telling him what everybody knew."

"The thing is," I said, "it doesn't matter. If he'd gotten the information from Chaz, he might have blown it off as the bullshit of an amateur. Chaz couldn't back it up, after all. But I confirmed it, and that means he started to take it seriously based on what I said. That means I'm to blame. This happened because I cracked."

He looked somber. "Everybody cracks. You stayed alive. That matters."

I didn't think so, at the moment.

Lewis checked the side mirror to make sure that the silver Viper was still behind us, then glanced at the speedometer. It registered two hundred, but I was pretty sure we were doing better than that. I'd helped us with a strong tailwind, and screw the balance. The headwind was a bitch, and it kept trying to shove the car sideways. My arm was getting tired, and my whole body was vibrating with tension.

I kept waiting for something, anything to stop us, but it was clear sailing all the way to White