Thin Air Page 0,72

head as if it was amazing anyone would bother with something as trivial as arrests for murder. "You were supposed to stay. I didn't know you'd leave."

"I didn't leave. I was arrested!"

"If you say so." Alice-Venna-sat there looking for all the world like a surly ten-year-old girl. Maybe twelve. Not a well-developed twelve. "Are you going to do what he wants? Bring down the building?"

"Not a clue," I said. "I guess I'll have to try. He's going to hurt my sister if I don't. Unless-"

"I could kill him." She meant it. And seriously-I considered it, too.

"No," I said, reluctantly. "I don't think so. Besides-and don't take this the wrong way-how do I know you wouldn't just skip off and leave me with a dead guy and no explanation?"

Alice considered that very gravely. "I suppose you don't really have any reason to trust me," she acknowledged. "That's a problem, isn't it? I'm sorry. I'm not used to being mistrusted. It's inconvenient." Her eyes suddenly focused back on the ocean. "There's a low pressure system pushing in from Mexico. You can use that. Do you remember how?"

"No."

She shrugged. "I can show you. Oh, and I've thought of a reason you should trust me."

"Do tell."

"I could kill you anytime I wanted." It was a cool, measured observation. Creepy in the extreme. "I'm Djinn. You're really not very important to me. If that's true, why would I lie to you? What would be the point?"

I swallowed hard. "Maybe you're having fun lying to me."

"Maybe I am. But I'd have more fun doing something else." She sighed. "I can help you with this, though."

"You can help me destroy the building. Like Eamon wants."

"Of course," she said, as though it were about as easy as scuffing over an anthill. Which, for her, might very well be true. "And then we can kill him."

Creep. Eeeeee. "No," I said. "No, we won't be killing anybody."

"Why not?" She looked surprised. "Don't you want him to go away? He scares you, you know." Yeah, like that was news to me. She must have read that in my expression, because she looked contrite. "I'm sorry. I don't do this very often. Talk to people. I'm not doing it very well."

This was turning into pretty much the ultimate in surrealism, I thought. I was having a conversation with Alice in Wonderland about destroying buildings and killing people, and she was worried about her communication skills. We sat in silence for a few seconds, watching people strolling the beach in the distance. It was getting late, so the place was more or less deserted.

I wondered if Eamon was watching us. Probably. I could almost feel the oily slime of his regard.

Venna turned her attention to the dark, rolling ocean, and I felt a stronger puff of breeze. "I can show you what to do," she said. "But we need to make the rest of these people go away first." She was talking about the few hardy souls out strolling the beach in the moonlight. I was going to ask how she planned to do that, but I didn't have to.

The skies opened up, and the rain began to fall like silver knives.

"There," Venna said, and smiled. "That's better."

I should have known that we wouldn't go unnoticed, but somehow I just wasn't prepared for the cops to show up.

Not the actual cops, the handcuffs-and-truncheon patrol; these were the other kind. The kind who radiated competence and power, and they showed up after Venna had been demonstrating how to curl the strands of storm one on top of another, building the tightly controlled fury of a tornado.

Two of them. I didn't know them, but they clearly knew me. The smaller one, female and prone to piercings, circled around to face me, while her partner, the tall, dark, and silent type, shadowed Venna. Not that Venna was paying the slightest bit of attention to him.

"Warden Baldwin?" the woman shouted over the wind and pounding surf, and held out her hand, palm out. Lightning flashed, hard and white, and illuminated something like a stylized sun on her palm. "I need you to cease what you're doing!"

"Hi," I said. "I can't do that."

"Warden, I'm not messing around with you. I know who you are, and there's a warrant out for your detention and return to the headquarters in New York. So, please, let's not make this hard, okay? Nobody has to get hurt!"

I sighed. I felt grimy, tired, and angry. Too much had been taken away from me,