The Bones of Valhalla (Purge of Babylon, Book 9) (4 page)

“Is he still inside that thing?” another voice asked. This one was female and she spoke haltingly, quietly, as if afraid he would hear.

“Nothing, and yes,” Danny said. “Eyes open, kids. No one goes in there that isn’t me or Lara, understand? When in doubt, buzz the radio. That’s what they’re for.”

“But it’s him?” the young man asked. “For sure?”

“It ain’t Santa Claus.”

“Nate said it could bust through that door if it wants to,” the woman said. “So what are we doing down here exactly?”

“What, you got something else better to do?”

“That’s not what I’m saying…”

“Stay frosty,” Danny said.

Footsteps, as Danny left, leaving the boy and woman behind to shuffle their feet. Nerves, but steely resolve.

He closed his eyes and concentrated, willing the bones to mend faster, for the muscle tissues to regrow. He needed to be at full strength for what was to come. And maybe even that wouldn’t be enough.

“Something’s come up, too,”
Danny had said.
“Our mutual buddy Mercer? He’s either dead or dead-ish. Or, at least, that’s the going theory. You said we were going to need a hell of a lot of luck to make this plan of yours work. Maybe this little revelation can help with that. What do you think?”

A new development that he continued processing, adding to what he already knew, what lay ahead for them. For him.

The news was unexpected but not unwelcome, and he did what he did best—he adapted.

But even as he shifted the plans around in his mind, he reached out with his senses, throwing them outward and beyond the lower deck, searching for the snippets of conversation, the hushed whispers.

“Is he dead?”
someone said.
“Is he really dead?”

“I don’t know,”
someone else said.
“Rhett’s in charge now…”

* * *

I
t was
dark outside the boat, and had been for a few hours. He knew without a doubt because he existed on two simple measurements of time—day and night.

And right now, it was the latter. He didn’t need a watch to know. It was in the way the air changed, even inside the tight confines of the chest. The gradual drop of temperature in the room, digit by digit, and the dramatic plunge in degrees beyond the boat’s thick walls.

His guards, who had been talking on and off, had gone quiet. The boy and the woman. Their names still escaped him, but he reasoned if he didn’t recall them then they probably weren’t important enough to his survival.

His body responded to the shift from day to night by cranking up, the blood in his veins flowing faster and freer, the mutated cells coming even more alive as they targeted and closed the wounds and repaired his injuries. He always healed faster at night because darkness was where he belonged. If traveling with Danny in the day had been nauseating, he was in bliss now as—

The boat. It had stopped moving.

How did he miss that before? The vessel was adrift under him and would be still, except for the occasional swaying against the waves. Why had they stopped? They were far from land; he knew because he could taste nothing but salt water all around him. So much of it that he grew agitated and had to refocus on something else.

There. Footsteps.

So many footsteps above and around him. Men and women of all sizes, and children. They were on the upper decks moving around. And talking. The buzz of excitement he had picked up earlier was still there.

“Is he really dead?”
someone said.

“Maybe,”
someone answered.

“What does it mean?”
someone else said on another part of the boat.

Mercer. They were still talking about Mercer.

The new development, and the reason he’d had to restructure the plan.

“Adapt or perish,”
someone had once said.

Had it been him? Lara? Or Danny—

A very distinct pair of footsteps intruded on the hushed conversations around the boat.

Heavy. Male. With
purpose.

They were moving through the now-silent engine room toward the back. Toward him.

He shut out the rest and zeroed in on the new arrivals.

“What are they doing down here?” one of his guards said. The boy whose name he couldn’t remember.

“You know them?” the woman asked.

“Riley’s men. I don’t know their names, but I know they’re not supposed to be down here.”

“We should radio Danny…”

“Wait, let me talk to them first,” the boy said, even as his heartbeat accelerated slightly.

The woman was calmer, but not by much. “You sure?”

“Yeah,” the boy said. Then, “You guys aren’t supposed to be down here.”

“Hey, Benny,” a new voice said. Male. Older.

“You’re not supposed to be down here,” the boy named Benny said again.

“Lara sent us.”

“No one told us,” the female guard said.

“Radio her yourself,” a third male voice said. He was softer spoken than the first. Easygoing.

“Why’d she send you down here?” Benny asked.

“Backup, I guess.”

“We don’t need backup.”

“You’ll have to take it up with the bosses. We’re just following orders.”

“Is it in there?” the first newcomer asked.

“Hey, get away from the door,” the woman said.

“I’ve never seen one in person before.”

“I said
get away from the door.
”

“Okay, okay…”

“Stay right there while I radio Lara.”

“Be our guest,” the second new arrival said.

The sea clung to their skin, and fresh fish expelled from their breaths. They were breathing heavily even though they were doing everything possible not to show it. Their heartbeats were erratic, and one of them was on the verge of hyperventilating. Adrenaline coursed through their veins like sledgehammers against his eardrums.

They’re lying.

The
click
of a radio, then the woman saying, “Lara, this is Carrie. Come in.”

His nostrils suddenly filled with the smell of oil rubbing against leather, followed by the boy shouting, “Don’t—,” but he never got the rest of it out before two gunshots boomed in the narrow confines of the hallway outside his door.

Bodies falling to the hard floor, the clatter of weapons. Racing heartbeats and sweat flitted into the air as the deadbolt was pulled aside.

The door opening and a voice—one of the two new arrivals—saying, “Is that it? Is it inside the chest?”

“I think so,” the other man said. The one with the softer voice. “Should we open it?”

“Fuck opening it,” the first one said.

The air shifted as a long object was raised and a single finger moved. The smell of discharging gunpowder overwhelmed his senses, even as the bitter taste of silver licked at his lips and tried to force their way down his throat.

He bit back the bile and pushed through the discomfort as the impossibly loud crashing of automatic gunfire filled the room.

S
he blamed
it on the meds, because there was really no reason why she should be so tired or drowsy, or had no incentive to get out of bed when she finally woke up from what seemed like a year’s worth of sleep. It wasn’t nearly cold enough inside the infirmary for her to need a blanket, but she just couldn’t find the inclination to whip it off. The room was noticeably darker than the last time she had her eyes open, though she didn’t have a prayer of telling time at the moment.

Conclusion: Getting shot was a real pain in the ass, and it was something she would definitely say no to if given the choice in the future. Of course, no one had given her the choice back in Gallant. Mason certainly hadn’t.

I hope you get yours soon, Mason, you prick.

She didn’t recall when Lara had left, because there was just her and the doc, who looked busy with a tablet across the room. Gaby didn’t feel any pain, just that annoying fog rolling around in her head, making everything difficult to grasp. She’d only been asleep for a day, right?

And what had she and Lara been talking about? Oh, right.

Will.

He was alive, despite all the odds. There was a time when Gaby thought he was indestructible, that even if you could knock him down, nothing could keep him from leaping right back up to his feet. If all else failed, his love for Lara would bring him home. Naively, she had always believed that.

Until now.

She was thinking about Will, trying to remember the last time she saw his face (his
real
face), when Zoe was suddenly replaced by Nate. Gaby blinked, trying to understand how that had happened as Nate walked over and sat down (gingerly, she noticed) on a chair next to her bed.

“Hey there,” she said.

“You look good,” he said.

“Do I?”

“Well, sort of.”

“Not what I wanted to hear.”

“You still look better than every girl on this boat.”

She smiled. “That’s the one.”

“Glad to be of service. Anyway, I got good news and bad news.”

“Tell me the good news first.”

“We got a whole lot of new chumps to whip at the next game night.”

“Sweet. So what’s the bad news?”

“There are way too many chumps onboard, and they’re taking up a lot of space. And you know about…” He nodded toward the floor.

She almost laughed, because she had done the same thing when Lara was here.

“Are you afraid to say his name?” she asked.

He grunted, but then glanced quickly over at the door. “Lara made it pretty clear we can’t go around blabbing about him. I think that’s a good idea. It’s hard to predict how the others will take the news.”

“Lara’s always been the smartest person in the room. It pays to listen to what she says.”

“You won’t get any disagreements from me,” Nate said as he leaned over her, looking her up and down.

“Take a picture, why dontcha.”

“Zoe really doped you up, huh?”

“Is it that obvious?”

“You’re still the hottest thing on this boat. Have I mentioned that?”

“Yes, but you have my permission to keep saying it.”

He grinned before glancing at the window across the room.

“What is it?” she asked.

“He’s still out there…”

“Who?”

“Our pal Mason.”

She frowned. Mason brought out the worse in her, and she couldn’t picture his beady little eyes without getting angry. Not just at him, but at herself for not pulling the trigger when she’d had the chance.

“We should have shot him,” she said.

“As Danny would say, shoulda, coulda, woulda, but didnta.”

“You’ve been hanging around Danny too much.”

“I know,” Nate said, and flicked the remains of his Mohawk over to one side. “I’m even losing my sense of style.”

“So what’s the negative side?”

“Oh, below the belt, lady.”

She smiled. This time it came out better. Or, at least, she thought it did. She was so groggy it could have looked awkward and freakish, for all she knew.

“Strangely enough, I miss it,” she said.

“What’s that?”

“Your dumb Mohawk.”

He flashed a triumphant smirk. “I knew you’d come around.” He ran his fingers through his hair. “I’m making an appointment with Carly tomorrow, just for you.”

“I said I missed it, I didn’t say I wanted it back.”

“Hey, make up your mind.”

“Come here,” she said.

“Why?”

“Just come here.”

He leaned over her and she reached up, took his face in her hands, and pulled him down. There should have been stabbing pain from her left shoulder where she was shot, but she hardly felt anything and had no trouble directing Nate until their lips touched. He tasted both sweet and salty, like most things out here on the ocean.

She didn’t know how long they kissed and wasn’t all that concerned about the passing time until someone cleared their throat.

Nate pulled back and smiled across the room at Zoe. “Hey, doc.”

When had Zoe come back? Or had she been here the entire time?

Gaby couldn’t tamp down—and really, didn’t want to—the flair of annoyance with herself for her lack of focus on her surroundings.

What would Will say?

“Seriously, guys, I just came back from lunch,” Zoe said. “Go easy on the lovey dovey stuff when us single people are around.”

“Give us a break,” Nate said. “We almost died out there. Twice.” He looked back at her. “Twice, right?”

She thought about it. “Three times?”

“You sure?”

“Larkin, Starch, then Gallant.”

“So we’re not counting when that Warthog strafed us on the road?”

“You think we should?”

“A hog tried to do what to you on the road?” Zoe said.

“Warthog,” Nate said. “It was one of Mercer’s warplanes.”

“Christ. What else does that psycho have flying around out there?” Zoe looked down at her watch. “Five more minutes; then you need to let her get some rest.”

“I’ve had plenty of rest,” Gaby said.

“Hey, who’s the one with the medical degree here?”

“Can I sleep in here with her?” Nate asked. “It’s pretty cramped out there with all the new faces around. You can’t go around a corner without running into people. And you have the other two empty beds…”

“Okay,” Zoe said, “but you need to let her rest. You’ll be able to talk to your heart’s content tomorrow. Five more minutes of chatter, then it’s night-night for her. And that goes for you, too. I see you barely getting by out there.”

“I’m fine, doc.”

“Bull. Your wound’s going to take longer to heal than hers. By tomorrow she’ll be running around and you’ll still be limping along.”

Nate sighed, but said, “Thanks, doc.”

Zoe returned to her work at the far counter while Nate looked back down at her.

“How’s your side?” Gaby asked.

He shrugged. “I won’t be playing hopscotch with the kids anytime soon, or cannonballing into the Gulf of Mexico, but it’s getting better. I’ve already asked Lara to put me on guard rotation outside Will’s room.”

“And she said yes?”

“Well, no.”

“Good.”

“Why, you don’t think I can handle it?”

“Not yet.”

“I handled it pretty well in Gallant.”

“No, you didn’t.”

“What are you talking about?”

She sighed. “Real talk?”

“I don’t know what that is.”

“The truth.”

“Always.”

“I thought you were going to fall down and die on me every time I looked at you.”

He raised both eyebrows. “Was I really that bad?”

“Worse.”

“Damn.”

“Yeah.”

He leaned down and kissed her on the forehead. “Thank God you were there, then.” He smiled again, and in that moment Gaby realized she would never get tired of seeing it. “But then I thank God every day that you came into my life.”

“Corny,” she said, but couldn’t help but smile back up at him anyway.

“Corn on the cob?”

“Maybe on a stick.”

“You love my stick.”

“I heard that,” Zoe said from behind them.

Gaby stifled a giggle. She couldn’t remember the last time she had done that, and it should have embarrassed her, but it didn’t. Not here, now, with Nate sitting next to her. The fact that they had survived Texas, gotten through the nightmare of Gallant, only made her appreciate having him at her side more.

“We really need our own room,” she whispered.

“What I’ve been saying,” Nate said. He gave her a peck on the cheek, then whispered, “The things I’d do to you when we’re finally alone again…”

“And healed up first, right?”

“Sure, if you wanna be all cautious about it.”

“I prefer not dying while doing the…you know.”

“Oh, I know,” he said, and grinned widely, though for some reason his head, followed soon by the rest of his body, started to become a little blurry. He must have seen her reaction, because he frowned. “You okay?”

“Meds are kicking in again…”

He reached down to stroke her hair gently. “Go to sleep. I’ll be here when you wake up.”

“Promise?”

“Always.”

“And no Mohawks.”

He let out an overly dramatic sigh. “You never let me have any fun.”

She smiled and drifted off…

* * *

I
t was fully dark
when she opened her eyes again, but she didn’t have a lot of trouble seeing the two figures moving around the room. At first she thought it was Zoe and Nate—maybe he was helping her with something—but no, because the two silhouettes separated and became three, then four, in all.

Gaby recognized Zoe’s outline as a bigger, taller shape directed the doc from one side of the room to the other. Gaby’s instincts snapped to attention and the words
Ghouls. There are ghouls on the
Trident! flashed across her mind, but it didn’t take very long before her eyes adjusted to the semidarkness, and what once looked like a black-eyed ghoul instead turned into a man wearing jeans and a plaid working shirt.

But her alarms didn’t stop completely, because the man was holding a handgun in his right fist as he pushed Zoe forward with his other hand, and Gaby woke up to him in mid-sentence saying, “—it’ll be over soon. All you have to do is not get in the way.”

“Why are you doing this?” Zoe asked.

“We don’t have a choice,” the man said.

“Need-to-know, Bray, remember?” a voice said.

Gaby turned her head slightly to look at the silhouette that had spoken. He was shorter and thinner than the first, and holding a pistol on a fourth figure—

Nate.

He was standing at the foot of a bed, hands folded behind the back of his head, and he was
looking directly at her
. When he saw that she had seen him, Nate shook his head—just barely. The man with the gun behind him wouldn’t have picked it up, and she wouldn’t have either, if she hadn’t been staring right at him.

No? Why is he telling me no?

She understood as soon as the second man leaned out from behind Nate and zeroed in on her. Gaby closed her eyes and lay perfectly still, and though she didn’t do it on purpose (or, at least, she wasn’t aware of having done it on purpose), her heartbeat slowed down and she slipped back into a relaxed state, the kind that someone sleeping would be in.

“What’s wrong with her?” the second man asked.

“She was shot,” Nate said. “She’s not going to give you any trouble. Zoe’s got her all doped up.”

“Is that true?” the man named Bray asked.

“Yes,” Zoe said. “She’s unconscious. Just leave her alone.”

“Check her, just to be sure,” Bray said.

“Stay here,” the second man said, though Gaby didn’t know whom he was talking to. It was probably Nate.

Quick footsteps as someone approached her bed; then the heat of a body leaning over her, along with the strong aroma of fried fish on the man’s clothes and breath. A (cold) pair of fingers pressed against the side of her neck, then gripped her chin and turned her head from side to side.

“Well?” the first man said.

“She looks asleep,” the second one said.

“Maybe she’s faking it.”

“I don’t think so.”

Fingers pried open the lid over her right eye, and Gaby stared back at a man with short blond hair. He looked to be in his late twenties and may or may not have been sporting facial hair; it was difficult to see a lot of details with only the moonlight splashing across different parts of the room for light.

Gaby willed her eye not to blink, or move, or for her pupil to dilate. Was that possible? Could you even force something like that?

The man tapped lightly on one of her cheeks, and she let out a soft, annoyed groan and opened her other eye.

“She’s awake,” the man said. “But she looks pretty out of it, like the kid said. Shouldn’t be any trouble.”

“You gotta make sure,” Bray said.

“I’m sure.”

The man let go of her eyelid, and she let it slide shut and turned her head slightly while continuing to lie still.

“What did you give her?” she heard Bray asking.

“Sedatives for the pain,” Zoe said. “I had to take a bullet out of her. She’ll sleep through this whole thing and wake up tomorrow thinking it was all just a bad dream.”