Chill Factor Page 0,112

to stop me. "If we leave him out, he'll fade again. The bottle is all that's keeping him alive right now. Djinn life support."

"And you called him out?" I didn't know what made me more angry. "Do me a favor-don't help, okay?"

"I was supposed to let you get smashed to pieces?"

"You were supposed to take down Quinn!" I yelled. "Did you?"

They looked anywhere but me. Rahel said, "We will."

"We will," I mocked. "Yeah, fine, whatever. Just let me find him and do this thing." I staggered when I tried to get up. Marion took my arm and hauled me upright, frowning.

"You're in no shape to take on anything more dangerous than a week in bed," she said. "You've torn muscles, damaged your shoulder-"

"I don't care." I bit the words off furiously and wiped wet hair back from my face, wishing that I were still a Djinn so I could clean myself up and smite somebody with a truly righteous amount of smiting. "He's got Jonathan, and he's got God knows how many bottles, and he's not getting out of this without a fight, and where exactly is Kevin?"

I ran it all together, alarm sharpening my voice, and saw Marion and Lewis look around in shock.

"He was right here," Marion began, but I wasn't watching her. I was caught by Rahel's expression. Alone among us, she wasn't surprised by his absence.

"Let him do this," she said. "It's his right."

"Do what!"

She shrugged. I shook free of Marion's hold and turned around, looking down the edge of the canyon. It couldn't be that far, a few sand dunes in the way, maybe a thousand yards of desert in the way...

Something blew up out there.

Something very, very big.

The shock wave rippled over me, and the noise whited out my eardrums; a fireball the size of a blimp rose up into the air, curling in on itself in reds and crimsons and ropes of hot yellow, in waves of smoke like tattered silk.

A shattered metal frame rose up off the ground, powered by another explosion. The massive steel monster, turning end over end, sailing out over the canyon and dropping down to smash into the foaming water with a hiss of superheated steam.

"That was a Hummer," I said numbly.

"And I think that was Kevin," Lewis said.

The kid had finally found a decent use for his powers over fire.

Then we were running.

The explosion had left a crater the size of a meteor strike, black in the center. Sand had turned to glass.

Quinn was down near the edge of it, bleeding from ears and nose, coughing up mouthfuls of red. The second I saw him, memory clicked into place: baseball cap, windbreaker, the same lean, whipcord body. Sun-glasses hiding his face.

Quinn. Orry. One and the same, not that I'd had any doubt.

Jonathan was standing over him, staring down. When we pelted over the sand toward him, avoiding the burning scraps of what used to be a hugely expensive SUV, I saw Kevin kneeling nearby. He looked... blank. Exhausted. That explosion had taken everything out of him.

No time for him now. I fixed my attention on Jonathan, and held out one hand in a calming motion. "Easy. Let's not get crazy here. We come in peace."

"No, you don't," Jonathan said absently.

"Okay, I lied, we don't. But it looks like Quinn's not going to make it, so let's not increase the body count, okay?"

"I don't have a choice." Ouch. The bleak fury of that was painful. "I thought since he wasn't a Warden, I'd have more chances. But he's good. He knew exactly what to say, what to do..."

The first command you give is to restrict them from using any power without your express order. The second is to order them to protect your life unless you expressly countermand it. The third...

I'd told Quinn how to do it. I'd screamed it out in the dark, under his knife.

I'd taught him everything he needed to know.

I'd told all that to the Wardens, of course, during the debriefing, and they'd said, It doesn't matter. He's not a Warden. He'll never be able to use the knowledge.

Except he had, hadn't he? Quinn was nothing if not ruthless and resourceful.

But I hadn't told him the most critical things, even so.

"Can he talk?" I asked Jonathan. It came out cold and even. Quinn's eyes rolled toward me, wild and rimmed with white.

"No."

"Then his last commands to you remain in force."

"I'm supposed to protect his life," Jonathan said. He was watching Quinn, not us, but