Thin Air Page 0,101

He remained limp as a puppet. "When you decide to be sensible, let us know. Until then, he remains with me."

"Venna, wait-"

She disappeared with a faint shimmer and a pop.

Lewis walked over, hands in the pockets of his jeans, casual and laconic as ever. "That went well," he said to David. David just glared at him. "Right. Well. I tried intercepting our impostor's SUV. It was empty. We have no idea where she's going."

I cleared my throat. "Actually," I said, "I think I might be able to find that one out."

It wasn't flattering that they both looked so damn surprised about it.

"Hang on," Paul Giancarlo said. "What do you mean, this is the real Joanne?" He gave me a look that rivaled Venna's for its ability to reduce me to the status of a small crawling thing. "No offense, but I think you've both been smoking something. Joanne left here in the SUV with you guys, and you come back with this and tell me she's the real deal? Are you fucking crazy?"

We were in the lodge, which was a nice, woodsy sort of place, privately owned by the Wardens, halfway up the slope of a decent-sized foothill to a more-than-decent-sized mountain. Blanketed by a light covering of snow, surrounded by the fresh green towering trees, it looked like a Christmas card. There was even a fire snapping and roaring in the hearth, bathing my right side in heat where I sat on the couch. Lewis had a wing chair across from me, booted feet up on a primitive-style coffee table built out of uneven round logs. David was pacing. The other Wardens had come with us, but they'd stayed in other rooms. Reporting to HDQ, presumably, or doing whatever it was that Wardens did, generally.

The other two in the room had been waiting for us at the lodge: Marion and Paul. Marion looked tired, but I couldn't see any long-term effects from our last encounter. I was glad, because I had the feeling that damaging Marion would be a very bad move on many different levels.

Paul looked pissed. He was scary when he was pissed.

"The other one convinced all of us," Lewis said. "She told us what we wanted to hear, and we all bought in. But it wasn't real. She wasn't real. And now she's out there, and we need to stop her."

"This is bullshit!" Paul spit, and stalked away, arms folded, to stare out the big picture window at the gorgeous view. I exchanged a look with Lewis, then got up and went to stand next to Paul, my hands folded on the windowsill. "Don't try to slick me, chickie. I got zero reason to believe you, either."

"That's true," I said, and turned to look him right in the eyes, then jerked my head to the door. "Can we talk in private? Please?"

He glanced at the others, suspicion grooved so deep into his face it looked like tribal tattoos. "I got nothing to say to you."

"Paul." I kept watching him, then turned and walked to the door. I didn't look back, but after a few seconds of silence I heard his heavy footsteps coming after me. The next room over was a small library. No fires lit in this room; it was cool and smelled of old paper, spiced with a hint of pumpkin from a bowl of potpourri. The curtains were drawn over the single window, and I shut the door after Paul followed me inside, and leaned against it with the knob digging into my back.

He folded his arms and glared. "What? And don't even think about touching me, bitch."

"You seem pretty angry about being fooled. Just what did she do to get you on her side?"

He went white, then mottled red. He didn't answer.

"Paul," I said. "Look, I don't remember you, okay? All I have is memories from a few people-"

"Yeah." He snorted. "Heard what you did to Marion and the folks at the clinic. Sounds like you're the menace, not the other one."

"-and a whole lot of guesses. You and me, we were never...?" I was keeping my voice very low, although I wasn't stupid enough to assume that the rest of them couldn't hear me if they wanted to eavesdrop. Especially David.

Paul shrugged, looking extremely uncomfortable. "None of your business."

"I'll take that as a no. Then why am I thinking you're looking at me in a whole different way than you were the last time I met you?"

He gave me a miserable