Thin Air

I had an irresistible, self-pitying urge to weep.

“So, are you going to do it?”

Ve

“Are you going to do it?” she asked me again. “You know he only wants it done for the money. I didn’t think you approved of that.”

“Now you show up?”

“Well, I was busy,” she replied. She came and sat down next to me, neat and tidy, hands folded in her lap. The sea air blew her fine blond hair back over her shoulders, and her black shoes dangled several inches off the sand. “Why did you leave?”

“Leave?”

“Where I put you,” she said patiently. “It was a perfectly nice place. I even checked with other people to be sure it was all right.”

“Did you actually rent the room?”

She looked at me like I’d grown a second head. “Why would I do that?”

“Because hotels have a fu

“Oh.” She contemplated that with a slight frown. “I can never keep you people’s rules straight.”

I gave up. “Why didn’t you just find me and poof me away again?”

“It’s dangerous,” she said. “It could kill you.”

I stared at her, struck dumb for a few seconds. Lewis had told me something about this, but honestly, I’d thought he’d been exaggerating. “You mean teleporting me out of the hospital could have killed me? And you were going to tell me this when, exactly?”

She seemed offended. “Most Dji

“Well, that makes all the difference.”

Another largely indifferent shrug. “You’re all right, aren’t you? I didn’t remember the police would want you, too. It’s hard to remember things like that.” She shook her 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-Ve

“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 Dji

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.

Ve

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

“There,” Ve

I should have known that we wouldn’t go u

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 Ve

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 Ve

“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, and if Ve

“Jamie,” she yelled. “Jamie Rae King.”

“Weather?”

“Yes, ma’am.” She looked cautious, and she kept flicking looks at her partner. “That’s Stan. He’s Earth.”

“Hey, Stan,” I said.

“Hey.” He nodded, and the wet sand suddenly went soft under my feet and dragged me down to my knees, trapping me. “Sorry, ma’am. But we’ve got orders.”

Ve

“No,” he panted. “Probably don’t. But I don’t have a lot of choices. You’re Dji

She didn’t answer, but then again, she didn’t really have to. She walked up to him, a force of nature packaged in a pinafore, and put her small hand flat on his chest.

She blew him twenty feet. Stan impacted the wet beach, rolled, and flopped to a limp stop. He groaned and tried to get up, but she held up a finger.

One finger.

And he shuddered and went flat.

“Hey!” I yelled at her over the boom of thunder. I was soaked to the skin, shivering, and more than a little scared by the fact that Jamie Rae was standing there looking from me to Ve