Thin Air Page 0,77

Quinn's dead."

"As sure as I can be," the woman said. "Cops found his SUV blown all to hell out in the middle of nowhere, no sign of Quinn's body, but they found a lot of blood. Too much for him to have survived. They figure coyotes scavenged his corpse, or else the flood got it. There was a storm around that time, a real gully-washer. Could have carried his body for miles if he fell into the arroyo. Anyway, he's dead for sure if he didn't contact me by now. I'm holding some stuff for him."

"Anything good?" Eamon asked, and looked through the field glasses again. Not-me looked polished and glossy, tanned and toned. Contemplative, as she gazed out over the horizon. She had an ocean view, apparently. Nice.

"A package from our friend Mr. Velez. Nothing too unusual this time. I was thinking of moving it through the East Coast channels, unless you had a better idea."

"No, Cynthia, that's fine. You do as you think best." Eamon stretched, sighed, and put the glasses down. "She's one of them, though. You're certain."

"She's one of them," the unknown Cynthia said. "I'd stake my life on it."

Eamon started the car. "You are staking your life on it, love."

Joanne Baldwin was, Eamon knew, the one Quinn had failed to kill all those years ago in the cave. How very interesting that it would come to this.

Blood would tell.

Blur.

Eamon with my sister. Eamon gaining my trust and betraying it in the most shocking way. I couldn't possibly have hated anyone more after I saw what he was up to, but the betrayals just kept on coming.

Mine, as well as his.

Eamon trading me Sarah for what he supposed was a Djinn bottle-which it was, just a booby-trapped one that let loose an insane Djinn who couldn't be controlled. Eamon fighting his way through a terrifying hurricane to cut me and Sarah loose from a tree, where the wind and debris would have killed us in a matter of minutes.

Eamon running away with my sister. And Sarah wanted to go.

Eamon coming back to me afterward, threatening Sarah again, but realizing that he'd lost his leverage. Not giving up, though. He was nothing if not persistent.

Imara was in the memories, too. Helping me. Guarding me. Terrified for me, as Eamon calculated how far he could push me-and her-to get what he wanted.

And David. That memory was crystal clear in Eamon's mind. David had come out of nowhere, nowhere, picked up a fallen knife, and-The second you disappoint me, little man, the instant I think that you're mocking me or even thinking about harm to my family, that ends. I watch you bleed your life away in less than a dozen heartbeats.

We'd left him, the three of us-mother, father, child. We'd been a family once. And David had loved us both with such intensity that it burned through to even a self-absorbed predator like Eamon.

Eamon respected him. And he liked me-in the same way he'd once liked Thomas Orenthal Quinn.

That turned my stomach.

What was worse, far worse, was that even as sick and horrifying as Eamon was, as far from human as I thought he was, when I looked at him with that dizzying rush of power, when his body dissolved into multilayered lights and networks of flowing energy, he was beautiful. Unique and beautiful and impossible not to somehow love for his damage and his brilliance and his fierce, unflinching intelligence...

I couldn't help but go back for more. So many memories, every color, every flavor filling my empty spaces. His memories weren't like Marion's; hers had been astringent, like dry white wine. Eamon's were red, bloodred, thick and salty and choking in their intensity. Horrors and wonders. Things that even in that state I tried not to see.

Venna yanked me out with her hand on the back of my neck, and her eyes were wide and very strange. The world lurched around me, tilted, and Eamon slid bonelessly off of the wall to collapse in a heap. Sarah cried out and knelt beside him.

"Oh," Venna whispered. She didn't spare any attention for Eamon, but she stared holes through me. "I didn't know you could do that. You shouldn't have, you know."

When Venna let me go I staggered off, fighting nausea, not fighting tears. I needed a shower, a wire scrub brush, and bleach to feel clean again. Oh, God.

I found myself sitting limply in the sand, tinted with flashing red and blue lights. Shaking.

"Jo?" It was Sarah, looking