bottle. You stay right here."
He took a couple of steps away, faltered, turned back.
"Oops," Jonathan said. He took another drink of beer.
"What?" I asked, and then I felt the air go odd and dead in the room.
I sucked in a startled breath, saw Kevin's eyes widen, and he asked, "You bitch, I said I'd let you-" He broke off into a sickening gagging sound and reached for his throat, whooping in a deep breath. I felt a burning, clawing sting in the back of my mouth, tried to scream, and realized that if I did I was dead. I turned toward Jonathan, who was watching us with mild interest.
"Can't let him do that," Jonathan said. "I've got things to do. People to see. If you know what's smart, Joanne, you'll stay the hell out of my way."
"Help-" I croaked. He shrugged.
"You're a Warden. Help yourself."
Kevin was already passing out. He pitched to his knees, clawing at his throat. His face was scarlet.
In seconds, he was down. Unconscious or dying.
I needed to breathe, and breathing wasn't an option at the moment. A stupid little rhyme ran through my mind, the punch line of which was what he thought was H2O was H2SO4. Chemical humor. My brain cascading uncontrollably, trying to find the answer in the rummage cupboard of my memory.
I let go of my body and felt it thump down on the expensive burgundy carpet, thick enough to qualify for mattress status, and launched myself hard into the aetheric. Reached for clarity. The air turned solid around me in a three-dimensional glittering cube, and I plunged deeper, deeper, hunting for what I knew would be there.
Two molecules added to the complex chain that made air breathable. Just two.
No problem, I could do that. I was good under pressure.
I stretched out power like a thousand hands and began crushing those molecules-or, more accurately, shaking them up like soda pop, changing their electromagnetic signature and rendering them unstable. Crushing them would have meant too much energy being released, and with the kind of poison that had been formed around us, that would have killed us just as fast. Us and most of the top three floors of the hotel.
This shit was extremely flammable. Jonathan really didn't care, did he? This was just another exercise for him; he wanted to see me jump through hoops. Maybe he was mad because I'd actually made Kevin agree...
Quit dicking around and work fast. That voice in my head was entirely unnecessary; I knew how little time I had before either Kevin or I sucked down too much of this crap to survive it. I wasn't enough of a biology geek to know what it would do to me, but I figured it would be fatal and it probably wouldn't be an easy way to go. Come on, move it...
God, I needed David...
No, you don't. You did this fine on your own before. It's not big enough to need a Djinn. Need was such a subjective thing. You did this in training, remember?
Yeah, well, in training sessions I wasn't trying to breathe it while I was altering it.
I realized that my fingers-at least the aetheric representation of them-were getting clumsy, and I dropped down partly into Real World land to form a pocket of pure oxygen around my body, then around Kevin's. I felt myself gasp, felt the rush of relief that followed, and went back up to patiently continue the work.
Something prickled along the back of my neck, which up there wasn't really my neck, or really a prickle; if Jonathan had done this to us, why wasn't he trying to stop me from fixing the problem? And why go to such lengths? He could have just put Kevin to sleep if he'd wanted.
"Chill Factor"
I abandoned the repairs, which were mostly complete anyway, and dropped down into my body like a speeding bullet, breathlessly fast, got to my feet and stumbled for the door...
... and ran into a man coming into the room.
A man with a gun.
I'd describe him, but really, the only thing in focus for me was the gun. I knew some fancy Fire Wardens who claimed to be able to block the ignition sequence in the firing chamber of a gun, but that took guts, mad skill, and a liberal dose of luck, none of which I had at the moment, and besides, I wasn't even a Fire Warden. My lungs and exposed skin were still aching from exposure to the poison-soup air.
I put