Forsaken (The Netherworlde Series) (16 page)

“Whatever you’re on,” she said. “Come on. Can you help me or not?”

“No.” He shook his head, lowering the gun, because there was no point in trying to keep it pointed at the three or four mirror images of her that kept fading in and out of his view.

“Maybe”—the tip of her tongue cut a coquettish swipe along her bottom lip—“we could work out a trade or something.”

“No, thanks.” He lay down again, drawing his knees toward his chest and curling into a ball on his side. Resting his cheek against his elbow, folding one arm beneath his head, he kept the gun in his other hand and within plain sight, immediately in front of his face. He closed his eyes and waited for her to leave him alone.

“Suit yourself.” He heard her clothes rustle as she stood. “But you know, you should be careful camping out on your own.” The sand crunched softly beneath her feet as she walked away. “People disappear from around here all the time.”

“Yeah, right.”

“I’m serious. See that fire right over there?”

He opened one eye, followed the guiding line of her outstretched arm, making out a blurry but discernablediscernible smear of yellow light farther along down the wharf.

“That’s mine. Me and some of my friends. There’s safety in numbers. You can come sit with us.”

“I don’t need you. Or your friends. I’ve got a gun.” He raised his head, propping himself somewhat upright on his elbow and wincing as pain shuddered through his injured shoulder. This last, he said loud enough not only for the girl to hear but anyone else who might be within earshot.

She paused, turning around. She’d stuffed her hands into the deep pockets of her quilted parka and although she remained silhouetted, her breath hung in the air around her head in a pale, glowing halo of frost.

“Yeah? How many fingers am I holding up?” Her hand emerged from her pocket…or, from Jason’s viewpoint, three hands emerged. When she held up her fingers, all he saw was her bobbing back and forth erratically, her and the identical triplets sprouting out of her. She laughed when he didn’t answer her, then turned, tromping off again, the cleats of her heavily soled boots digging deep into the sand. “Good luck with that,” she called. “You got a nice face too. What a shame.”

Goddamn it,
he thought, hanging his head and shoving his hair back from his brow. He looked around blearily, but all he could see were more silhouettes, all keeping their distances, minding their own business to his admittedly dazed observation. When his gaze settled on a group of shadows nearby, young men talking together in hushed undertones, he squinted, trying to decide if they were watching him, listening to him, targeting him or not.

“Wait,” he said to the girl, and this time, when he sat up, the pain from his shoulder stripped the breath from him. He gasped, doubling momentarily, his hand darting instinctively for the wound. The ibuprofen he’d swallowed earlier had long since worn off, and he’d been too drunk to think to take any more when he’d left the apartment, never mind the prescription narcotics Dean had brought him. All that stood between him and a world of hurt at the moment was a diaphanous layer of alcohol-induced numbness.

****

As the son of a bar owner who had subsequently owned this same bar, Jason had years of firsthand experience witnessing the effects of alcohol on human behavior. Thus, he seldom if ever drank. Thus, when he woke the next morning, with the incoming tide sending waves burbling close enough to his face to pepper his cheeks and mouth with fine droplets of salt-flavored spray, he squinted against the pale gray glow of dawn and dragged in a sharp, hissing breath as his skull immediately throbbed in nauseating, pulsating protest.

“God,” he groaned. He lay on his belly in the cold, wet sand. The damp chill had seeped through the denim of his jeans, the overlapping layers of shirt, sweater and coat, and he shivered.

What happened to me?
he thought, opening his eyes a dazed and cautious half-mast again, watching as a thin, frothy line of water came rolling toward him from the sea, stopping within a few inches of his nose. He pushed his hands into the sand and forced himself to sit up, grimacing again as what felt like a hammer pounded against the inside of his head. Closing his eyes, he waited for the pain to pass, and with it, the wave of vertigo, the urge to vomit.

Jason opened his eyes and turned his head slightly to find her beside him. Dressed in ankle-high boots and black jeans with a hot-pink long-sleeved T-shirt beneath her parka, she sat with her ass against his duffel bag, her elbows resting comfortably on her knees. A cigarette smoldered between her fingertips. As he watched, she drew it to her rosebud-shaped mouth and took a long drag.

Beyond her, the beach beneath the pier, which the night before had been crowded with people seeking shelter, was relatively deserted. He saw the blackened remnants of dead campfires, scattered garbage and the occasional huddled form of someone still curled up and sleeping near the pilings.

“You going to puke?” Mei asked.

He shook his head, closing his eyes against another wave of nausea that wanted to contradict this assertion. When she slipped her arm around him, squatting next to him in the sand, he looked up at her. “Come on,” she said, the cigarette butt tucked between her teeth. “Let’s get you on your feet.”

She helped him stumble upright, but as soon as he was standing, his stomach did a lazy little somersault. With a gulp, he jerked away from Mei and staggered to the water’s edge, where upon he promptly doubled over and threw up into the encroaching sea foam.

“God,” he groaned when he was finished, shaking like a leaf caught in the wind, spitting loudly, violently, to dislodge a thin strand of thick, puke-flavored saliva dangling from his bottom lip.

She wrapped her arm about his waist again and he leaned heavily against her as they trudged slowly together back up the beach. When they reached the steeply pitched dunes leading up from the waterfront, she stopped at a small series of outbuildings, banks of exterior lockers available for rent, along with restroom facilities for swimmers and surfers.

“Hold on.” Mei led him among the rows of lockers, stopping and squatting in front of one. She reached beneath the collar of her shirt and pulled out a brass key hanging from black yarn. “You can put your bag in here if you want,” she said, sifting through the locker’s contents and producing an oversized ziplock bag. In it, he could see an assortment of small plastic shampoo and lotion bottles, bars and ovals of pink and cream-colored soaps, disposable razors and toothpaste tubes. The bottles were all labeled with hotel insignias and logos, Best Western, Holiday Inn, the Marriott, and as she passed him the bag, Jason looked at her, puzzled and curious.

“They’re all still good,” Mei said, bristling somewhat defensively. “They just throw them away if they’ve been opened. Their Dumpsters are full of them.”

He followed her to one of the restroom buildings. “I’ll stand out here and watch for cops,” she told him. “They’ll be coming around soon now that the sun’s coming up, to chase off any stragglers. Might scare the tourists, you know.” She dropped him a wink.

“Why are you being so nice to me?” he asked, frowning.

She shrugged. “I don’t know. Like I said last night, you’ve got a nice face.”

He ducked into the bathroom and listened to her humming from the other side of the heavy steel door. She’d pulled an MP3 player out of her coat pocket, slipping earphones in and lighting up another cigarette. He could smell the smoke creeping in beneath the door.

I don’t need this,
he thought, limping over to the sink. He’d already made his mind up that he would go to Seattle. If he couldn’t find a way to make the Eidolon bring him there again, like it had yesterday, he’d hitch a ride.
Something,
he thought.
Anything.

He’d been in Seattle when Nemamiah had stabbed him. It stood to reason he’d spent at least part of the last five years there. More importantly, it stood to reason that Nemamiah was still there somewhere.
Maybe he can help me fill in some of these blanks in my head,
Jason thought, splashing ice-cold water on his face, dousing away some of the hungover cobwebs from his mind.
If he doesn’t try to kill me again, that is.

The marks on his face, the bruises and abrasions he’d seen only the day before, evidence of his brawl with Nemamiah, had vanished, just like the dog bites in his arm. But as he stripped off his sweater and T-shirt, gasping at the sudden, shocking pain, he knew that the stab wound was still very much there. In fact, from the feel of things, it had gotten even worse. He stumbled backward into a trash bin. When it crashed to the floor, he tripped and fell with it. Reacting instinctively, he caught himself with his hands, sending crippling new agony searing through the entire right side of his body. Jason cried out hoarsely, clutching at his shoulder, crumpled against the floor.

“Hey.” Mei knocked. “You okay in there?”

She opened the door hesitantly and poked her head inside. When she saw him, her dark eyes flew wide and she rushed into the bathroom, throwing her still-smoldering cigarette behind her. “Oh my God,” she gasped, dropping to her knees. She reached for him, then drew back, her eyes growing wide all over again when she saw his shoulder. “What happened to you?”

He shook his head, the best he could manage because his teeth were gritted, his eyes closed, tears leaking down his cheeks. “Nothing,” he whispered. “It…it’s nothing.”

“Nothing, hell,” Mei exclaimed. “You’re hurt.” She reached for his fallen clothes, his coat. “Get up. There’s a free clinic over on Campbell. I’m taking you there.”

“No.” He shook his head again. “I’m all right.”

When she drew his arm across her shoulders, he jerked reflexively, gasping in a sharp, pained breath, nearly a mewl, and she frowned. “Bullshit. You’re a mess. Now shut up and come on.”
CHAPTER TWELVE

“Let’s take a look here.”

Dr. Elena Ruiz Delgado’s gloved fingertips were as gentle as her voice as she prodded lightly against the sutured edges of Jason’s wound, but it still felt for all the world like she jammed the business end of a razor blade into him, and he jerked.

“That hurts?” She glanced up into his face, her brow raised. When he nodded, she looked away again, returning her attention to the wound. “What got you?” she asked. “A shank?”

He shook his head. “A sword,” he murmured, his eyes closed, wincing as again she touched the line of stitches.

Again she looked at him, this time in surprise. “That’s a new one on me. Someone’s cleaned it up nicely for you. They knew what they were doing.”

Mei had brought him to the small, brightly lit clinic that occupied the first two floors of an old shotgun-style building. Judging by all of the drug admonition and HIV awareness posters tacked to the walls, the place catered to the city’s large population of homeless and runaway teens. Brochures and handouts promoting phone numbers and hotlines for those in need were prominently displayed throughout the room. Across from the paper-lined examination table upon which he now sat, Jason saw a fishbowl filled with brightly colored foil-wrapped condoms.
FREE!
a hand-lettered sign taped above the bowl declared.
TAKE SOME!

“It’s not unusual for sutured wounds to look red around the edges like that,” Dr. Delgado said, continuing her examination, moving along to Jason’s face. Using the pad of her thumb, she held his eyelid gently open and shined a penlight at him, checking his pupillary reflex. “At least for a couple of days. I can give you some ibuprofen for the pain and inflammation.”

She tilted his head back and shined the light momentarily up his nose. He watched as she turned his arms palm-up toward her and touched the deltas of his elbows lightly, curiously.

“I don’t shoot up,” he said with a frown, pulling away from her, and she nodded in agreement.

“And you don’t sniff it up your nose either. Your septum’s healthy, not inflamed or deteriorated.” She snapped off the pen and turned, lifting his paperwork in hand, tucking the light back into her lab coat pocket. “You’re twenty-five?”

He nodded. At least, he’d been twenty-five when he’d died. Technically, he was thirty, but had answered out of reflex. Scratching it off, writing in the correct age, then trying to explain why he didn’t even know how old he was hadn’t seemed worth the time, effort or energy.